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r«ttj*i< w CAPT.W.II.BIIBY 

CORP? OF ENQINEER£,U.3 ARMY. 



WHITHER? 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
American Presbyterianism. ItsOriginand 

Early History, together with an Appendix of Letters 
and Documents, many of which have recently been 
discovered. Cr. 8vo, with maps, . . . $3.00 

Messianic Prophecy. The Prediction of the 
Fulfilment of Redemption through the Messiah. A 
critical study of the Messianic passages of the Old 
Testament in the order of their development. Cr. 
8y Of $2.50 

Biblical Study. Its Principles, Methods, and 
History of its Branches. Crown 8vo, . . $2.50 

Whither? A Theological Question for the Times. 
Crown 8vo, . • $1.75 



tl 



WHITHER? 



A THEOLOGICAL QUESTION FOR THE 

TIMES 



BY 

CHARLES AUGUSTUS BRIGGS, D.D. 

DAVENPORT PROFESSOR OF HEBREW AND THE COGNATE LANGUAGES IN 
THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1889 



r-K, . 



.137 



COPVRIGHT, 1889, BY 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 



Transfer 
Engineers School Li by. 

June 29, 193 .l 



E. O. JENKINS' SONS PRINTERS, 

fO N. WILLIAM STREET. 

NEW YORK. 



£ 



TO 
DAVID HUNTER McALPIN, 

THE GENEROUS DONOR OF THE WESTMINSTER COLLECTION IN THE 

LIBRARY OF THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, 

NEW YORK, 

t^his Booh 

IS DEDICATED AS A TOKEN OF ESTEEM AND FRIENDSHIP. 



PREFACE. 



This book is a product of more than twenty years 
of study in the history of Puritan Theology, and es- 
pecially of the Westminster divines, the authors of the 
Westminster Standards. 

In the years 1 866-1 869 the author was in Berlin, en- 
gaged partly in the study of exegetical theology and 
oriental languages with Dr. Aemilius Roediger, and 
partly in the study of the history of doctrine under the 
guidance of Dr. Isaac Dorner. He undertook a special 
study of the history of the doctrine of Justification by 
Faith and its relation to Sanctification. In this study 
he learned the failures of the Protestant scholastics 
from the faith of the Reformation. When he came to 
the study of the Westminster Confession he was sur- 
prised to find that it had not only retained the pure 
faith of the Reformation, but had advanced upon it in 
the unfolding of the doctrines of Sanctification, Faith, 
and Repentance. This was a surprise, because it had 
not been noted by any of the British or American di- 
vines whose works he had studied, and it was entirely 
in advance of the faith of the British and American 
Churches. 

Since that time his study of the Westminster Stand- 
ards, in the light of the Westminster divines and their 
Puritan associates and precursors, has continued with 

(Vii) 



irjij PREFACE. 

constantly increasing interest. He has spared no time, 
labor, or expense in searching the original editions and 
manuscript sources of all documents relating to this 
subject ; spending many months in the chief libraries of 
Great Britain and in the lesser Puritan libraries ; and 
diligently searching in old book-stores for every book, 
tract, and manuscript that could be found and pur- 
chased. During the past fourteen years the kind friend, 
to whom this book is dedicated, has furnished all the 
funds that were necessary for making these purchases. 
This entire collection was given by Mr. McAlpin to the 
library of the Union Theological Seminary, which now 
contains the best Westminster Library in the world. 

These studies of the Westminster divines disclosed 
the fact that modern Presbyterianism had departed from 
the Westminster Standards, all along the line. It is not 
strange that this departure has been unconscious, for the 
Westminster divines have been entirely neglected by 
the dogmaticians of our century. They have not been 
read. One looks in vain for their names in the works of 
Presbyterian divines. Instead of them the scholastic 
divines of the seventeenth century, of the continent of 
Europe, have been used as authorities ; and consequently 
the dogmaticians have taught in their systems the scho- 
lastic theology of the continent of Europe, and have in- 
terpreted the Westminster Standards to correspond 
with it. 

The author has been troubled for some years with these 
facts. He has occasionally referred to them incidentally 
in connection with various theological discussions in 
which he has been engaged ; but he has hesitated to 
disclose all the facts for fear of exciting theological con- 
troversy and of doing more injury than good to the 
kingdom of Christ. He has waited for an external call 



PREFACE. j x 

to publish them. This call came in May last, through 
the action of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States of America with regard to 
the revision of the Confession of Faith. Accordingly 
he turned aside from other literary work to fulfil this 
duty. 

The question of revision of the Westminster Stand- 
ards has become the burning question of the Presby- 
terian world by simultaneous action of the General As- 
semblies of the American and Scottish Churches. Be- 
fore the ministers can act intelligently it is necessary 
that they should know the facts that are presented to 
the readers of this volume. 

My friend, the Rev. Charles R. Gillett, the librarian of 
the Union Theological Seminary, has greatly aided me 
by preparing the Index, a work for which he has unusual 
qualifications. 

This book is historical. It aims to show what the 
Westminster Standards are, what the Presbyterian 
Churches have done with them in the past, and to in- 
terpret them by copious citations from their authors. 
Only by such a study can any one intelligently consider 
the question of Revision. 

The book is polemical. It is necessary to overcome 
that false orthodoxy which has obtruded itself in the 
place of the Westminster orthodoxy. I regret, on many 
accounts, that it has been necessary for me to attack so 
often the elder and younger Hodge, divines for whom I 
have great respect and admiration. Their names will 
always rank among the highest on the roll of American 
theologians. It has also been necessary to expose the 
errors of my younger associates in the editorship of the 
Presbyterian Review, and other divines, my friends and 
colleagues. The reader will see that this polemic has 



x PREFACE. 

nothing in it of a personal or partisan character ; it could 
not be avoided in the line of discussion that has been 
undertaken ; for it is the theology of the elder and 
younger Hodge that has in fact usurped the place of 
the Westminster theology in the minds of a large pro- 
portion of the ministry of the Presbyterian Churches, 
and now stands in the way of progress in theology and 
of true Christian orthodoxy ; and there is no other way 
of advancing in truth except by removing the errors that 
obstruct our path. 

The book is irenical. It shows that there have been 
so many departures from the Standards in all directions, 
that it is necessary for all parties in the Presbyterian 
Churches to be generous, tolerant, and broad-minded. 
The author does not wish to exclude from the Church 
those theologians whom he attacks for their errors. 
He is a broad-churchman and all his sympathies are 
with a comprehensive Church, in which not only these 
divines shall be tolerated, but all other true Christian 
scholars shall be recognized, and wherein all Christians 
may unite for the glory of Christ. He rejoices in all 
earnest efforts for Christian Unity, not only in Presby- 
terian and Reformed Churches, but in the entire Chris- 
tian world. 

The book is catholic. The six chapters that make 
up the body of the book use the Westminster Standards 
as the test of orthodoxy, to determine the extent of 
departures from them in the Presbyterian Churches. But 
the doctrines discussed in them are those in which all 
Christian Churches are interested. The author has kept 
in mind the common interests of Catholic Christianity, 
and he has not hesitated to use on occasion a higher 
test of orthodoxy than the Westminster symbols. What 
has been done in six chapters of this book for the Pres- 



PREFACE. x [ 

byterian Churches could be done for all the other Prot- 
estant Churches. They all alike have departed from 
their official standards of doctrine. What then is to be 
done under these circumstances? Whither are Chris- 
tians to direct their minds and energies ? It is the main 
intent of the book to ask this question, and to give, in 
some measure, an answer to it. Accordingly the two 
introductory and the two concluding chapters are wider 
than Presbyterianism, and have in mind the Christian 
world. 

The process of dissolution has gone on long enough. 
The time has come for the reconstruction of theology, 
of polity, of worship, and of Christian life and work. 
The drift in the Church ought to stop. Christian divines 
should steer directly toward the divine truth, as the 
true and only orthodoxy, and strive for the whole truth 
and nothing but the truth. The barriers between the 
Protestant denominations should be removed and an 
organic union formed. An Alliance should be made 
between Protestantism and Romanism and all other 
branches of Christendom. The Lambeth Conference, in 
its proposals for Christian Unity, points in the right 
direction. The Church of England is entitled to lead. 
Let all others follow her lead and advance steadily 
toward Christian Unity. 

True Christian orthodoxy will stand firm on the 
consensus of Christendom, will debate the dissensus 
in an irenic spirit, and will advance bravely until it 
master the sum total of truth that God may reveal unto 
us, and exhibit the fulness of Christian life into which 
the divine Spirit may guide us. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
Drifting, p. i. 

CHAPTER II. 
Orthodoxy, p. 6. 



Orthodoxy and Orthodoxism, p. 7 ; Orthodoxy and the Scrip- 
tures, p. 9 ; Orthodoxy and the Symbols of Faith, p. 19. 

CHAPTER III. 
Changes, p. 23. 

Changes in the Positions of the Traditional Orthodoxy, p. 23 ; 
What are the Westminster Standards ? p. 23 ; Change of At- 
titude to the Standards, p. 27 ; Revision of the Standards, 
p. 30 ; the Ministry, p. 33 ; the Presbytery, p. 43 ; Presby- 
terian Worship, p. 48 ; Religion and Morals, p. 58. 

CHAPTER IV. 
Shifting, p. 63. 

Traditional Orthodoxy shifting from the base of the Reforma- 
tion, p. 63 ; the Holy Scriptures, p. 63 ; Verbal Inspiration, p. 
64 ; Inerrancy of the Scriptures, p. 68 ; the Authority of the 
Scriptures, p. 73 ; Authenticity and Canonicity, p. 81. 

(xiii) 






x j v CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 
Excesses, p. 91. 

Orthodoxism excessive in the elaboration of the first eleven Chap- 
ters of the Westminster Confession, p. 91 ; the Living God, 
p. 93 ; the Love of God, p. 94; the Divine Decree, p. 97 ; Cre- 
ation, p. 105 ; the Doctrine of Man, p. 107 ; Human Inability, 
p. 109 ; the Mediator, p. 112 ; Effectual Calling, p. 118 ; the 
Damnation of Infants, p. 121 ; Forgiveness of Sin, p. 137. 

CHAPTER VI. 
Failures, p. 141. 

Orthodoxism neglects the middle group of Chapters in the 
Westminster Confession, p. 141 ; Adoption, p. 142 ; Sanctifi- 
cation, p. 146 ; Saving Faith, p. 149 ; Repentance unto Life, 
p. 151 ; Good Works, p. 154; Assurance of Grace, p. 157; 
the Law of God, p. 158 ; Christian Liberty, p. 159 ; Religious 
Worship, p. 161. 

CHAPTER VII. 
Departures, p. 163. 

Orthodoxism departs from the Westminster doctrines of the 
Church and the Sacraments, p. 163 ; Church and State, p. 
164 ; Marriage and Divorce, p. 171 ; the Church, p. 173 ; the 
Sacraments, p. 179 ; Roman Catholic Baptism, p. 181 ; the 
Real Presence, p. 190. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Perplexities, p. 195. 

Orthodoxism is perplexed with the problems of Eschatology, 
p. 195 ; Judgment at Death, p. 195 ; the Millennium, p. 200 ; 
the Middle State, p. 206 ; Premillenarianism, p. 211 ; Pro- 
bation after Death, p. 217. 



CONTENTS. xv 

CHAPTER IX. 
Barriers, p. 225. 

The Barriers to Christian Union, p. 225 ; the Divine Right of 
Church Government, p. 226 ; Subscription to elaborate 
Creeds, p. 239 ; Uniformity of Worship, p. 248 ; Traditional- 
ism, p. 258 ; Alliances and Federal Unions, p. 261. 

CHAPTER X. 

Thither, p. 266. 

Progress in Theology, p. 266 ; the Consensus of Christendom, p. 
268 ; Is Rome an Ally ? p. 269 ; the Dissensus of Christen- 
dom, p. 273 ; New Doctrines, p. 276 ; Biblical Criticism, p. 
277 ; the Future Life, p. 285 ; the Holy Life, p. 287 ; the 
Unity of Christ's Church, p. 289; World-wide Conflict, p. 296. 

Index, p. 299. 



CHAPTER I. 
Drifting. 

RELIGION in Great Britain and America is at present 
in a very unsatisfactory condition. There is a wide-spread 
dissatisfaction with the Old Theology, and the old meth- 
ods of worship and church work. At the same time there 
is distrust and anxiety with reference to new theology 
and new measures that are proposed by recent theologi- 
cal doctors. The ministers are not preaching the distinct- 
ive doctrines of the Old Theology, or the peculiar fea- 
tures of their own denominations, because the people 
are tired of them, and will not have them. The minis- 
ters do not care to preach to empty pews, and besides, 
not a few of the ministers sympathize with their people 
in these matters. The ministers are in a feverish condi- 
tion. Some are desirous of adapting the Old Theology 
and old methods to the new conditions and circum- 
stances ; others are opposed to any changes in the old 
types ; there are some hot champions of the new, and 
there are some sturdy defenders of the old ; but the 
majority do not care to disturb the peace, and are wait- 
ing for light and guidance. There are some few who 
have real insight into the situation, and therefore hesi- 
tate to incur the responsibility for that dreadful theo- 
logical struggle that is liable to burst forth on the first 
exciting occasion. 

The Christian people are not generally concerned 



2 DRIFTING. 

about theological questions, but they are deeply inter- 
ested in the more practical matters of Christian life and 
work. They have the same dissatisfaction and uncer- 
tainty here, that their pastors feel in the theoretical 
parts of theology. The churches fail to do the Chris- 
tian work they ought to do. Schemes are devised and 
organizations are multiplied to make up for the deficien- 
cies of the churches. Each new scheme is to supple- 
ment the older schemes and do some neglected work ; 
but in most cases they prove to be only new forms of 
doing old work, and therefore they compete with the 
older organizations and work confusion. They are all 
alike defective, they do not realize the Christian ideal, 
they do not satisfy the Christian heart. There are, in- 
deed, many ways of doing good, but the multiplication 
of agencies is a sign of the dissatisfaction and discon- 
tent with the churches which ought to do all this work 
that is done outside of them, and much more work that 
is still left undone and for which no provision has been 
made. 

One of the most distressing signs of the times is the 
failure of the Church to evangelize the masses in the 
great cities. There is a chasm between the poorer 
classes and those who are comfortable and wealthy. 
The Gospel is glad tidings to the poor ; and yet the 
poor have not that interest in the Gospel that we have 
a right to expect. The churches do not make sufficient 
provision for them, and do not reach them in any ade- 
quate measure. The free churches of America have 
failed in providing the Gospel for the poor by private 
benevolence, no less than the established churches of 
Europe by inadequate provision of the State. 

There have been several efforts made in recent times 
to overcome this difficulty. The most important of 



WHITHER? 3 

these is the " Salvation Army," under the management 
of General Booth. Whatever objections there may be 
against the army in some of its doctrines and methods, 
there can be little doubt that it has accomplished a 
great work among the masses who do not go to church. 
But it virtually adds a new denomination to the too 
many already in existence, and it does not provide for 
the education of a ministry and the Christian nurture of 
its converts. 

Another strong effort has been put forth by Mr. 
Moody and other so-called evangelists who have pursued 
his methods. Great combinations are made with great 
effort and great noise for a little while here and there, 
and much good was accomplished, but with the cessation 
of the special efforts everything goes back to the former 
state of things. There is nothing permanent about these 
evangelistic labors. Moreover, Mr. Moody and his fol- 
lowers are crude in their theology, they pursue false 
methods in the interpretation of Scripture, and there- 
fore they spread abroad not a few serious errors, and on 
the whole work disorganization and confusion. They 
do not edify the Church of Christ, they do not organize 
and train the awakened and converted. The churches 
ought to do all this work of evangelization and vastly 
more that is left undone. 

Efforts have been made in recent years, both in Great 
Britain and America, for more efficient Christian work 
by the organization of several new enterprises in closer 
connection with the churches. The most efficient of 
these are the " Guilds of the Church of Scotland " and 
the " Society of Christian Endeavor " in America. These 
have proved great blessings to the young people and the 
churches that have employed them, and are the most 
encouraging signs of real progress. 



4 DRIFTING. 

In the meanwhile the barriers between the several 
denominations of Christians have been broken down 
and pierced in so many places that they no longer pre- 
vent the transition of ministers from one fold to an- 
other. The removal of people from denomination to 
denomination has long been quite easy. There is a 
deep and wide-spread feeling of the enormous waste 
that comes from the multiplication of organizations, 
and the intricate and conflicting machinery of missions 
and benevolent work. The longing for Christian unity 
is becoming stronger in all parts of the Christian Church. 

What then is the meaning of the strife between the 
old and the new, and what is to come out of this seeth- 
ing mass of dissatisfaction and longing? There are 
dreadful possibilities of discord, strife, schism, and chaos 
of sects. But there are also blessed possibilities of con- 
cord, co-operation, and the reunion of Christendom. 

The work of foreign missions has assumed vast dimen- 
sions in our times. The whole world has been opened 
to the preaching of the Gospel. The Christian Church 
has an opportunity of serving Christ such as it has never 
had before since the first advent of our Lord. Great 
progress in foreign missions has been made in the pres- 
ent century ; but any one who looks at the vastness of 
the heathen world and the countless millions who have 
never heard of the glad tidings of redemption by Jesus 
Christ, and considers the wealth and power of Christian 
nations, will see that the Christian Church has not 
grasped the situation, and that Christian people are in- 
curring a dreadful guilt before God, if the doctrine of 
the lost condition of these heathen be a true one. It 
may be asked, which are the more guilty, those who 
need the Gospel and have it not, or those who have the 
Gospel and do not value it sufficiently to give it to those 



WHITHER? 5 

who cannot be saved without it ? From this point of 
view it may be more tolerable in the day of judgment 
for Pekin, Calcutta, and Yeddo than for London, New 
York, and Chicago. 

Those who are anxiously contending for the Old 
Theology, and are opposing any modification of its 
types, do not discern the signs of the times. What they 
mean by the Old Theology is in the most cases their 
own old theology, the theology they have been taught 
in their youth, which they have never really mastered, 
but which they have adhered to as a matter of tradition 
and duty. They have no conception how greatly the 
Church has advanced in the past, and how greatly they 
themselves differ from the standards of the church to 
which they profess strict adherence. 

Any one who will take the trouble to study any of 
the Christian denominations of Europe or America in 
its present condition, and to compare the current the- 
ology and life with the theology and life of its founders, 
will be easily convinced that there have been great 
changes. These changes have been due in part to the 
assimilation of one denomination to another, in part 
to the assimilation of the churches to the political, 
social, philosophical, and scientific conditions of the 
age, in part to the eccentricities of certain influential 
leaders, who have risen up from time to time, and also 
in part to a general advance in religion. All Christian 
denominations have drifted from their standards, and 
are drifting at the present time. No one who has ex- 
amined the facts and considered the historical situation 
can doubt it. The question that troubles us the most 
is— Whither? 



CHAPTER II. 

Orthodoxy. 

ORTHODOXY is right thinking about the Christian 
Religion : not that Orthodoxy consists only in thinking, 
but that right thinking involves right teaching and right 
acting. 

No thinking can be right that is not in accordance 
with the truth. Truth is the daughter of God. She is 
one, and she cannot be rightly known in parts or sec- 
tions ; for no one can rightly know the various parts 
who does not see them centering in their unity ; and no 
one can rightly know their unity who does not compre- 
hend the variety that springs therefrom. Hence all 
human orthodoxy is partial and incomplete. No one 
can be entirely orthodox, as no one can be altogether 
good, save God only. 

Orthodoxy, so far as man is concerned, is relative and 
defective ; it is measured by the knowledge that he has 
of the truth. Man's knowledge is not a constant quan- 
tity. It varies in different men, in different nations and 
societies, and still more in different epochs of history. 

The Pharisees claimed to be orthodox, and in their 
pretended orthodoxy condemned the Saviour of the 
world. The Greek Church claims to be orthodox, and 
has remained stationary in its stereotyped forms of think- 
ing for centuries. The Roman Catholic Church parades 
its unity, catholicity, and orthodoxy, and yet it perse- 
cuted the pious and used every diabolical art to prevent 
(6) 



WHITHER? 7 

the Reformation of the Church. The Lutheran scho- 
lastics claimed the possession of the pure doctrine, and 
in the name of orthodoxy made war upon the vital 
piety of Spener and the Pietists. The Reformed scho- 
lastics in the interest of orthodoxy divided the Church 
into hostile camps, and their successors have been busy 
sowing discord, making strife, battling with science, 
philosophy, art, and every form of human thinking, and 
thus rending the Church of Jesus Christ into numerous 
sects. Orthodoxy has been made the pretext for op- 
pression and crime, the foe to progress in science and the- 
ology, the enemy of the truth in all ages. Orthodoxy 
is a good thing, one of the best things, but it has been 
put to shame by the great number of counterfeits that 
have circulated in the world. 

ORTHODOXY AND ORTHODOXISM. 

It is necessary to distinguish between true orthodoxy 
and false orthodoxy — between orthodoxy and orthodox- 
ism. Orthodoxism assumes to know the truth and is 
unwilling to learn ; it is haughty and arrogant, assuming 
the divine prerogatives of infallibility and inerrancy; it 
hates all truth that is unfamiliar to it, and persecutes it 
to the uttermost. But orthodoxy loves the truth. It 
is ever anxious to learn, for it knows how greatly the 
truth of God transcends human knowledge. It follows 
the truth, as Ruth did Naomi, wherever it leads. It is 
meek, lowly, and reverent. It is full of charity and love. 
It does not recognize an infallible pope : it does not bow 
to an infallible theologian. It has one only teacher and 
master — the enthroned Saviour, Jesus Christ — and ex- 
pects to be guided by His Spirit into all truth. 

Orthodoxy has a different meaning in different lands 
and different ages, depending partly on the stage of 



g ORTHODOXY. 

the education of our race, and partly upon the different 
race or national characteristics and the temperaments 
that distinguish mankind. 

There must be some objective standard, some com- 
prehensive statement by which the relative orthodoxy 
of men may be estimated and measured. The absolute 
standard of human orthodoxy is the sum total of truth 
revealed by God. God reveals truth in several spheres ; 
in universal nature, in the constitution of mankind, in 
the history of our race, and in the sacred Scriptures, but 
above all in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord. 

If a man has mastered this entire revelation of the 
truth, all that science, philosophy, history, the sacred 
Scriptures and Jesus Christ can give him, then, and then 
only, he may claim to be entirely orthodox. His ortho- 
doxy has revealed its limit and its perfection. But until 
that desirable result has been attained, orthodoxy is va- 
riable and progressive ; it is partial and incomplete, and 
must go on to reach perfection and completion. Hence, 
for all practical purposes, Orthodoxy and Progressive 
Orthodoxy are convertible terms. , 

That man or church whose orthodoxy does not make 
progress, ceases thereby to be orthodox, and from the 
necessities of the case becomes heterodox. He refuses 
to accept the truth that is offered him by the advances 
in science, philosophy, history, and the more exact study 
of the sacred Scriptures. He is heterodox, in that he 
falls short of the revealed truth that the truly orthodox 
have already accepted. He is also heterodox in all that 
he does accept and teach ; for he keeps his thinking and 
teaching in the shadow of stereotyped forms of thought ; 
he declines to bring his knowledge into the full light of 
the truth, which like the sun has risen higher toward its 
zenith ; he prefers his darkness to the light of God ; he 



WHITHER? 9 

fears to look the truth in the eyes, lest he should be 
convicted of error, and be compelled to change his po- 
sition, his convictions and statements. Intellectual 
timidity and cowardice are not consistent with Chris- 
tian orthodoxy. True orthodoxy is brave, manly, and 
aggressive ; it marches forward. 

Truth is so connected and interwoven in an organism 
that an advance in any department exerts an important 
influence upon the whole system. Any man or church 
that refuses to accept the discoveries of science or the 
truths of philosophy or the facts of history, or the new 
light that breaks forth from the Word of God to the 
devout student, on the pretence that it conflicts with his 
orthodoxy or the orthodoxy of the standards of his 
church, prefers the traditions of man to the truth of 
God, has become unfaithful to the calling and aims of 
the Christian disciple, has left the companionship of 
Jesus and His apostles and has joined the Pharisees, 
the enemies of the truth. He that is born of God 
heareth God's words. The man who has within him the 
spirit of truth, and is following the guidance of the 
divine Spirit of truth, will hail the truth and embrace it 
whether he has seen it before or not ; and he will not be 
stayed by the changes, that he fears may be necessary, 
in his preconceptions or prejudices, or his civil, social, or 
ecclesiastical position. A traditional attitude of mind 
is one of the worst foes to orthodoxy. 

ORTHODOXY AND THE SCRIPTURES. 

We have an infallible standard of orthodoxy in the 
sacred Scriptures. God himself, speaking in His holy 
Word to the believer, is the infallible guide in all ques- 
tions of religion, doctrine, and morals. But the sacred 
Scriptures do not decide for us all questions of ortho- 



10 ORTHODOXY. 

doxy. They do not answer the problems of science, 
of philosophy, or of history. They do not cover the whole 
ground of theology. There are important matters in 
which the Christian religion enters into the spheres of 
science, philosophy, and history where the divine reve- 
lation given in these departments of knowledge is either 
presupposed by the sacred Scriptures, or else has been 
left by them for mankind to investigate and use in the 
successive constructions of Christian theology, which 
have gone on since the apostolic age, and which will 
continue until the end of the world. 

The sacred Scriptures are not the only source of 
Christian theology ; they were given in the midst of 
other sources of knowledge to enlighten us in the fields 
where these were insufficient. The New Testament 
does not give us the entire instruction of Jesus Christ, 
the sum total of apostolic doctrine. 

The Bible does not decide all questions of religion. 
It does not decide the mode of baptism ; it does not 
clearly determine whether infants are to be baptized ; it 
does not definitely confirm the change from the Sabbath 
to the Lord's day; it does not determine the question 
of liturgical worship ; it does not clearly fix the mode 
of church government. It leaves a great number of 
questions upon which Christians are divided undeter- 
mined. 

The Bible does not decide all questions of doctrine. It 
does not give us the mode of creation, the origin of sin 
and evil, the psychological construction of human na- 
ture, the reasons of the divine election, the mode of 
life in the middle state. If the current systematic the- 
ology were reduced to its Biblical dimensions and then 
extended so as to cover the Biblical ground, it would 
be so different that few would recognize it. 



WHITHER? 11 

The Bible does not decide all questions of morals. It 
does not decide against slavery or polygamy ; it does 
not determine a thousand political and social questions 
that have sprung up in our day. 

Doubtless there are general principles given in the 
Bible that may guide us to the solution of all these 
questions. But it is high time for men to cease con- 
founding Biblical statements with the conclusions that 
they have drawn from these statements. The religion, 
doctrine, and morals of the Bible are very different from 
the current religion, doctrines, and morals of the Church, 
whether expressed by systematic statements, or in the 
lives and teachings of the people. 

None of the older divines gave the human reason its 
proper place in religion and theology. They were all 
too much involved in the older methods of exegesis 
which sought to prove everything possible from the 
Bible. It was necessary that there should be a long 
conflict with Deism in order to eliminate Natural The- 
ology as a distinct theological discipline ; and then the long 
conflict with Rationalism in order to establish the place 
of Speculative TJicology. The Bible does not war against 
the truths of nature, of the reason, or of history. It rather 
concentrates "their instruction in its central Revelation. 

The Scriptures shine with heavenly light in the midst 
of the sources of human knowledge. They cannot be 
understood alone by themselves. It is probable that the 
reason why the Scriptures have not been more com- 
pletely mastered in our time, is that the divine truth re- 
vealed in other spheres has not been brought into proper 
relation with the Scriptures. The sacred Scriptures are 
for the whole world and for all time. As man grows in 
the knowledge of nature, of himself and of history, he 
will grow in the knowledge of the Scriptures. 



12 ORTHODOXY. 

The sources of knowledge are so interrelated that they 
cannot be entirely understood apart from the whole 
organism of truth. The Reformation would have been 
impossible without the new birth of learning that pre- 
ceded it — the emancipation of the human spirit from the 
bondage of mediaeval scholasticism. The present advance 
in science is preparing the way for another reformation 
of the Church — it is emancipating us from the bondage 
of Protestant scholasticism. 

We are well aware that there are some theologians, 
especially in America, who have claimed that their sys- 
tem of theology is altogether Biblical, and who have 
made it their boast that they have taught nothing new 
in theology. But, to say the least, these theologians are 
mistaken ; they have deceived themselves, and they de- 
lude others. In fact they have restated the scholastic 
formulas of Protestantism ; they have appropriated from 
other spheres of learning all the truth that seemed to 
suit their purpose and that could be used in their sys- 
tem. They have done precisely the same in their use of 
the sacred Scriptures. 

Biblical theology is a recent branch of theological sci- 
ence that sprang from the necessity of distinguishing 
between the theology of the Bible and the theology of 
the theologians.* Any one who has taken the trouble 
to compare the two has noticed the difference. He finds 
that each Biblical writer has his own range of ideas and 
each writing its own scope, and that it is necessary to 
gather this vast variety in a higher unity in order to 
comprehend the sum total of the theology of the Bible. 
He also sees that every age has its own circle of thought 
and every theologian his point of view and every Chris- 



* Briggs' " Biblical Study," pp. 367 seq. 



TVHITHER? 13 

tian church its peculiar mission. The sum of Biblical the-, 
ology is not represented in any creed or any theologian. 
Many Biblical doctrines were overlooked by the ancient 
and the mediaeval churches, and were first brought into 
their influential position at the Reformation. But the 
student of Biblical theology finds that the Reformers 
built also on too narrow ground, chiefly upon the epis- 
tles to the Romans and Galatians. There are not a few 
who still find the theology of Paul in the epistle to the 
Romans, and build their system upon that. But in fact, 
no one can understand the doctrine of Paul who has not 
advanced beyond the epistle to the Romans and appre- 
hended the more developed Christology of the epistles 
of the imprisonment. Protestantism, by building too 
exclusively on Paul and on his earlier epistles at that, 
can never attain the climax of Christian orthodoxy 
until it enlarges its horizon by a more faithful use of 
the Pauline epistles of the imprisonment, and also 
of the theology of James, Peter, and John. Our ortho- 
doxy cannot be Biblical orthodoxy until it has compre- 
hended the sum total of the theology of the Bible both 
in its variety and unity. But even if this maximum 
were attained, the maximum of Christian orthodoxy 
would not be reached. Indeed the Bible itself cannot 
be thus mastered unless a corresponding advance is 
made in other departments. Even Christ does not 
open up the Scriptures to His people until they are 
prepared to understand and use the knowledge given 
to them. 

Christian theology must be constructed by the induc- 
tion of divine truth from all spheres of information. 
There is no system of theology which has not been in- 
fluenced by the discoveries of science, the principles 
of philosophy, and the events of history, as well as by the 



^4 ORTHODOXY. 

temperaments and characteristic features of the individ 
ual writer, his nation and race. 

As the Scottish commissioners to the Westminster 
Assembly well said : 

" All the books of God are perfect, the book of life, the book 
of nature, the book of providence, and especially the book of 
Scripture, which was dyted by the Holy Ghost to be a perfect 
directory to all the churches unto the second coming of Jesus 
Christ, but so that it presupposeth the light and law of nature, 
or rules of common prudence, to be our guide in circumstances 
or things local, temporal, and personal." * 

But unfortunately there are not a few theologians who 
have mingled bad science, false philosophy, traditional 
history, and incorrect exegesis with the genuine truth of 
the Word of God ; they have given forth this mixture of 
wood, hay, straw, and stubble with the fine gold, as the 
standard of orthodoxy, and have presumed to set it up 
as a bulwark against the vast and profound discoveries 
of modern science. We are not surprised that we are 
hearing shrieks and groans as we see these airy struc- 
tures disappearing in the flames that have been kindled 
by the torch of Truth, who is tired of such foolery. 

Such theologians have assumed an unfriendly atti- 
tude to science, philosophy, and history, and even the 
scientific study of the Scriptures. They have refused to 
taste the fruits of modern methods and modern learning. 
They have appropriated with marvellous caprice what- 
ever seemed to suit their purpose. They have delighted 
in any little flaws and mistakes of scholars. They have 
stoutly resisted everything that was antagonistic to their 
traditional system. They have been impatient of new 



* " Reformation of Church Govt, in Scotland cleared from some mistakes and 
prejudices by the Commissioners of the Gen. Assembly of the Church of Scot- 
land now in London," 1644. 



WHITHER? 15 

truths and branded them as " novelties." They have 
made Christian theology the enemy of human learning 
so far as they have been able to exert an influence. 
They have been the true successors of the Pharisees. 
They have zealously contended to do what the Roman 
Catholic hierarchy failed in doing. They have not suc- 
ceeded in retarding human learning, but they have alien- 
ated a large proportion of the scholars of the world from 
the Christian Church. They have wrought serious dam- 
age to the science of Christian theology. Such pre- 
tended orthodoxy is real heterodoxy. It is to blame 
for the dethronement of theology from its rightful posi- 
tion as the queen of the sciences. God has dethroned 
her for a season as He did Nebuchadnezzar, because she 
exalted herself against the truth of God, but after a sea- 
son of humiliation she will be enthroned again. 

The sacred Scriptures contain a divine revelation to 
mankind for all ages. They are a treasury of grace to 
train our race and guide the world until the second ad- 
vent of Jesus Christ. What theologian or what Chris- 
tian Church has mastered them? Through all the ages 
of Church History there has been a progressive appro- 
priation of the Word of God in worship, doctrine, and 
life. The Scripture and man are counterparts. The 
Bible contains its special revelation for every man and 
every race and every epoch, — for the entire world. It is 
on this account a unique book, a divine book. Has 
Protestantism attained the maximum of Christian doc- 
trine? Has Calvinism solved the mysteries of the Chris- 
tian religion? Has Puritanism or Methodism trans- 
formed the world ? These religious movements have 
all been blessed by God and have wrought great good 
by their progressive orthodoxy. They have each in 
turn been opposed by a pretended orthodoxy that had 



IQ ORTHODOXY. 

apostatized from real orthodoxy. In every case these 
religious movements, like all the religious movements 
that preceded them, eventually became stereotyped in 
a dead orthodoxy that blocked the way of further prog- 
ress. Greek Christianity could not restrain the advance 
of Roman Christianity, and Roman Christianity did not 
prevent the advance of German Christianity in the great 
Reformation. The entire world is now open to the Gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ. Asia and Africa, America and the 
islands of the sea are to unite with Europe in the wor- 
ship of Jesus Christ and the study of the mysteries of 
our religion. Can we suppose that our Teutonic type 
of Christianity will be imposed upon the Oriental and 
African races? Is there any prospect whatever that the 
Greek and Latin and Slavonic races will adopt the Teu- 
tonic type? Let us not deceive ourselves, The Bible 
is for the world. The Christian religion is for all man- 
kind. The ultimate Christianity that will suit our race 
will be as much higher than Protestantism as Protest- 
antism is higher than Romanism. Yes, it will be vastly 
more exalted ; for it will be so comprehensive that all 
the types of Christianity will advance unto it as the ulti- 
mate form for which they have all been preparing 
through the centuries under the guidance of the divine 
Spirit. 

There is more light to break forth from the Word of 
God to illuminate our religion, our doctrines, and our 
life, and make them higher and more glorious. The di- 
vine Spirit will enlighten the future generations still more 
than He has enlightened the past generations. He is 
the guide of the Church to the end of the world. Has 
orthodoxy made progress in the past ? It will make 
greater progress in the future. Presbyterianism is not 
the last word of God to man. God has something vastly 



WHITHER? 17 

better for us than Calvinism. Puritanism is not the ul- 
timate form of Christfanity. The Anglo-Catholic revival 
has not attained the ideal of Christ. 

The prejudices of traditionalism cannot stay the ad- 
vancing truth of God. Every form of Christianity that 
has opposed the progress of doctrines in the past has 
been cast aside and left behind in the race. Are Prot- 
estantism, Calvinism, Puritanism, Presbyterianism, Meth- 
odism, and Anglo-Catholicism to have the same fate? 
They have all come to a halt in religious, doctrinal, and 
ethical progress. They have all alike become stereo- 
typed in church order and types of doctrine. But 
there is a stir amid the dry bones. What is to come 
out of it all? Is there to be another Reformation that 
will throw them aside? Is there to issue forth anew 
orthodoxy leaving the reacting heterodoxy in its present 
lifeless position ? Or will the vital forces that are at work 
in the Protestant Churches be sufficient to revive them 
and lead them on to a higher destiny? It would seem 
that the types of Protestantism have still a work to do 
in the world. We believe that the Churches of Protest- 
antism are ripening for a better future in which all the 
Churches of the world will share. 

God is speaking to His Church with an imperative 
voice and commanding it to go forward. The progress 
of learning in our day has been marvellous. The Bible 
itself has been flooded with the new light cast upon it 
from all directions by modern discoveries. The spirit of 
research animates a large number of professors and stu- 
dents of theology and Christian ministers and Christian 
people of all ranks. These are still in the minority. 

There is a freer theological atmosphere in England 
and Scotland, but in Ireland and America Orthodoxism 
and Traditionalism are still predominant, and thinkers 



18 ORTHODOXY. 

are obliged to work cautiously. But there are not a few 
in America who are striving earnestly to advance in 
Christian orthodoxy. Exegetical theology is passing 
through a transformation. The Bible is studied by 
theological students as never before. Historical theol- 
ogy is beginning to share in the same movement. Prac- 
tical theology is also active and aggressive. Systematic 
theology alone is pulling back. But this will not endure. 
There are noble Christian theologians who are at work 
reconstructing the system of doctrine. The old tradi- 
tional systems are the rallying-points of Orthodoxism 
and Traditionalism. They do not realize the facts of 
the case. They do not see what is manifest to the rest 
of the world — that the Traditional Orthodoxy has been 
undermined and honey-combed by the recent Biblical 
and historical studies, as well as by the newer science 
and philosophy. Unless it can be strengthened by bet- 
ter exegesis and history and be more conformed to truth 
and fact, it will soon crumble and perish. We greatly 
need a system of theology that will embrace the results 
of modern learning. 

Dogmatic Theology in Great Britain and America has 
been too long in the bondage of the seventeenth cen- 
tury Scholasticism and the eighteenth century Apolo- 
getics. The time has come for it to burst these bonds 
and march forward. It ought to run with all its might 
and march at the head of the column of modern learning. 
Christ is the king of a kingdom of truth, and His fol- 
lowers ought to be ashamed to drag His banner in the 
rear. 

The battle against science, philosophy, exegesis, and 
history must come to an end. All truth should be 
welcomed, from whatever source, and built into the 
structure of Christian doctrine. The attitude of Tradi- 



WHITHER? 19 

tional Orthodoxy should be abandoned as real hetero- 
doxy, and the attitude of Advancing Orthodoxy assumed 
as the true orthodoxy. 

ORTHODOXY AND THE SYMBOLS OF FAITH. 

But have we not standards of orthodoxy in the Con- 
fessions of Faith and the Symbolical Books of the 
Church ? Certainly ! Most Christian Churches have 
such symbolical books, which constitute the standard of 
orthodoxy for their own church organizations and deter- 
mine what is Lutheran, Reformed, Presbyterian, Angli- 
can, or Congregational orthodoxy. But they do not de- 
termine Christian Orthodoxy. Christian orthodoxy is 
defined by those symbols in which the universal Church 
unites. These symbols are the Apostles' Creed and the 
Creeds of the great CEcumenical Councils. There was 
no symbolical advance during the Middle Ages. The 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were centuries of 
great symbolical progress. But this progress consisted 
in defining the distinctive faiths of the different denom- 
inations that sprang into existence at the Reformation. 
The Roman Catholic Church defined its faith at the 
Council of Trent. Its decrees define orthodoxy in the 
Roman Catholic Church. But their distinctive princi- 
ples are heterodoxy to Protestants. The Lutherans de- 
fined their faith in the Augsburg Confession, and a later 
Scholastic Lutheranism eliminated itself from the milder 
Lutherans and Melancthonians in the so-called Formula 
of Concord. The Reformed Churches have no common 
creed, but formulated a number of symbols in different 
countries, the most important of which are the Heidelberg 
Catechism, the Second Helvetic, Belgian, French, and 
Scottish Confessions, and the Articles of the Church of 
England. These agree in the main, and there is a con- 



20 ORTHODOXY. 

sensus that is not difficult to define. Scholastic Calvin- 
ism eliminated itself from the milder Calvinism, and the 
Arminians in the Decrees of the Synod of Dort. And 
thus each branch of the Church of Christ in Western 
Europe defined its own terms of orthodoxy, which ex- 
cluded all who could not subscribe to them. 

Protestantism is divided into numerous sects, and 
is confronted with innumerable tests of orthodoxy. 
There is a consensus of Protestant opinion which, if it 
could be defined and accepted by all, would be vastly 
more valuable than the best of the symbols or than all 
of them combined. 

The most elaborate and definite of all the creeds 
of Protestantism are the Westminster symbols. The 
churches that adhere to these are the strictest in their 
adherence to the traditional orthodoxy. But it is clear 
to any one who has studied the genesis of the West- 
minster standards and the doctrinal history of Great 
Britain and America, that the Presbyterian and Congrega- 
tional churches have drifted in many important respects 
from the Westminster orthodoxy. 

This drift has been gradual and imperceptible under 
the leadership of able divines who did not take the 
trouble to study the Westminster divines, the authors 
of the standards, but who relied on their a priori logic 
for the correct interpretation of the standards as well as 
the Scriptures, and accordingly they interpreted both 
the Scriptures and the standards to correspond with that 
system of scholastic Calvinism which had become to 
them the rule of faith. It was an evil day for Presby- 
terianism when the Puritan and Presbyterian fathers 
were laid aside, and the scholastic divines of Switzer- 
land and Holland were introduced into our universities 
and colleges as the text-books of theology, and the 



WHITHER? 21 

tests of Orthodoxy. The Westminster symbols were 
buried under a mass of foreign dogma. Francis Tur- 
retine became the rule of faith, and the Westminster 
Confession was interpreted to correspond with his scho- 
lastic elaborations and refinements. 

The same reasons that called forth the discipline of 
Biblical Theology, brought into being the discipline of 
Symbolics, for it became necessary not only to distin- 
guish the theology of the Bible from the theology of the 
schools, but also to discriminate between the theology 
of the symbols and the theology of the theologians. 

There is a tendency in all religions to make the tradi- 
tional interpretation of the schools the tests of orthodoxy. 
This was the case with the Jews who buried the Old Tes- 
tament under the traditions of the elders and that mass 
of elaboration of definitions that has been gathered in the 
Talmud. In the Church the Gospel was shrouded by the 
teachings of the Fathers, and orthodoxy was measured by 
Augustine and Aquinas rather than the New Testament. 

The Reformation introduced a new age of the world, 
and made a grand step forward in the progress of Chris- 
tianity. But the Pharisaic spirit entered into Protest- 
antism and the process of decay began. Soon the prin- 
ciples of the Reformation and the doctrines of the 
Confessions and Catechisms were covered by a mass of 
scholastic dogma constructed out of the speculations of 
little popes who came into power in the several national 
churches of the Reformed and Lutheran types. Prot- 
estantism was stiffened, hardened, and paralyzed. The 
counter-reformation set in, and the Protestant churches 
exhausted themselves with internal strifes that have con- 
tinued until the present time. 

A new reformation is necessary. The temple of Theol- 
ogy must be cleansed from this theological rubbish ; the 



22 ORTHODOXY. 

traders should be driven out ; the fences erected between 
the denominations should be broken down. Heroic men 
are needed who shall burst the bonds that fetter the Word 
of God and retard the progress of Christian theology and 
life. 

The Puritan reformation, called the second reforma- 
tion, was the last great confessional movement of Prot- 
estantism. It was a fresh outburst of divine life in the 
churches of Great Britain. But, alas, Puritans soon be- 
came puritanical, and the broad, catholic, progressive 
theology of the Westminster standards was straitened 
and narrowed by the unworthy descendants of such 
heroic sires. They no longer studied the Westminster 
divines, but sought consolation in the muddy pools of 
Dutch and Swiss scholasticism. Under the guidance of 
these alien masters they abandoned the distinctive prin- 
ciples of Puritanism, they fell back from the lofty ethical 
ideas of the Westminster symbols, they introduced low 
views of the church and the sacraments, they strained 
and stiffened the hard doctrines of Calvinism, and finally 
marred the essential principles of the Reformation. 

We do not claim that all of the work of the later 
dogmatists in Great Britain and America is bad. In 
this mass of dogma, some of it extra-confessional, some 
of it infra-confessional, and some of it contra-confes- 
sional, there is a mixture of truth and error. Doubtless 
there has been real progress in some directions, but 
there is an immense mass of crude speculation and of 
false reasoning. A thorough critical sifting is neces- 
sary. Advancing orthodoxy will reaffirm the authority 
of the Protestant symbols, strip off the mass of hetero- 
geneous dogma heaped upon them by dogmaticians, 
deprive this stuff of its spurious claims of orthodoxy, and 
deal with it as it deserves in truth and righteousness. 



CHAPTER III. 

Changes. 

We propose to show that the American Presbyterian 
Church has drifted away from the Westminster Stand- 
ards. This will appear in several successive chapters of 
this book. It is first necessary to consider the general 
attitude of the Traditional orthodoxy to these Standards. 

WHAT ARE THE WESTMINSTER STANDARDS ? 

The Westminster Assembly met in accordance with 
an ordinance of the English Parliament, July I, 1643, 

" to conferre and treat amongst themselves of such matters and 
things touching and concerning the liturgy, discipline, and gov- 
ernment of the Church of England, or the vindicating and clear- 
ing of the doctrine of the same from all false aspersions and mis- 
constructions." * 

The Westminster divines were chosen to represent all 
the counties of England and Wales, the two universities, 
and all parties except the extreme high churchmen of 
the type of Laud, and the Anabaptists. The Church of 
Scotland sent commissioners, with the aim of " settling 
of the so-much-desired union of the whole island in one 
forme of Church government, one confession of faith, 
one common catechism, and one directory for the wor- 
ship of God." These entered the Westminster Assem- 
bly, September 15th. On Monday, September 25th, the 

* See Briggs' " Documentary History of the Westminster Assembly," Presby- 
terian Review^ I., pp. 134 sea. 

(23) 



24: CHANGES. 

entire body with the House of Commons took the 
solemn league and covenant in St. Margaret's Church, 
Westminster, including among other things the vow : 

"We shall endeavor to bring the churches of God in the 
three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in 
religion, confession of faith, form of church government, direc- 
tory for worship, and catechising, that we, and our posterity 
after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord 
may delight to dwell in the midst of us." 

It is clear that the Westminster Assembly was more 
concerned with the practical matters of church govern- 
ment and worship than with matters of doctrine. It is 
interesting to note that the Westminster Assembly be- 
gan their work by an attempt to revise the XXXIX Ar- 
ticles of the Church of England. They began July 8, 
1643, and advanced as far as Article XVI., when on 
October 12th, Parliament required them " to take in 
hand the discipline and liturgy of the Church." This 
partial revision of the XXXIX Articles is important in 
the history of doctrine, but has never been adopted by 
any of the Presbyterian Churches. The most of the 
work on it was done before the Scottish commissioners 
entered the Assembly. If Scotland was to unite with 
England in one Confession, something more than a re- 
vision of these English Articles was required. 

The Westminster Assembly began its work on the 
discipline of the Church, October 17, 1643, and con- 
tinued to debate matters of church government and dis- 
cipline until July 4, 1645, when the draft of government 
was completed and sent up to Parliament for approval. 
The work upon the liturgy of the Church began May 
24, 1644, and continued until December 27th. The 
Westminster Assembly then undertook the composition 
of the doctrinal standards, but the work was frequently 



WHITHER? 25 

interrupted by questions sent down from Parliament on 
the practical matters requiring immediate consideration. 
The work on the Confession began in the Assembly 
after preliminary work in special committees, July 
7, 1645, and the debate continued until December 4th, 
when it was sent up to Parliament. The preparation of 
the proof-texts for the Confession took from January 6, 
1647, until April 26th. The preparation of a Catechism 
had been given in charge to a committee of which Her- 
bert Palmer was chairman. They began with a prelim- 
inary report May 13, 1645, but the Catechism did not 
come before the Assembly until September 14, 1646. 
The debate on the questions reported went on until 
January 4, 1647. There was a considerable difference of 
opinion as to the form and the extent of the Catechism. 
This difference was removed by the decision, January 
14th, to prepare two Catechisms, a Larger and a Smaller. 
Accordingly the debate on the Larger Catechism began 
April 15, 1647, and continued until October 15th, when 
it was sent up to Parliament. Mr. Palmer was chiefly 
responsible for the doctrinal parts, as indeed the Larger 
Catechism was chiefly based on his Catechism ; but Mr. 
Tuckney was the leader in the parts dealing with the 
Ten Commandments. The commissioners of the Church 
of Scotland took part in the preparation of all these 
documents, but left the Assembly soon afterward, Octo- 
ber 19, 1647. Mr. Tuckney was made chairman of the 
committee on the Shorter Catechism. The debate be- 
gan in the Assembly October 21st and continued until 
November 25th, when it was sent up to Parliament 
The Scottish commissioners were not present and were 
not responsible for the composition of the Shorter Cate- 
chism. Parliament required the Assembly to prepare 
Scripture proofs for both Catechisms. This they began 



26 CHANGES. 

to do November 30th, but did not complete their work 
until April 12, 1648. 

This sketch of the work of the Westminster Assembly- 
discloses several important facts that are commonly over- 
looked in our times. 

1. As the Assembly was called by Parliament chiefly 
to determine the liturgy, discipline, and government of 
the Church, so they gave their attention to these mat- 
ters above all others. This is clear, not only from the 
time consumed in the composition of the documents re- 
lating to discipline and worship, but also from the fact 
that these matters take up such an unusual amount of 
space in the Confession of Faith itself. 

2. There were several stages in the composition of the 
doctrinal standards which are worthy of attention. Three 
months were spent in the revision of sixteen of the 
XXXIX Articles of the Church of England. These 
articles were carefully and thoroughly considered. The 
revision is valuable as showing the improvements of the 
Westminster divines in the statement of these doctrines. 
More than twenty months passed before the Assembly 
again took up doctrinal matters. In the meanwhile the 
Episcopal party had withdrawn from the Assembly, 
which thus became more compact and more strongly 
Presbyterian. It was determined to make a new Con- 
fession of Faith, and to abandon the revision of the old 
Articles. The composition of the Confession consumed 
five months. Dr. Temple and Mr. Reynolds seem to have 
been the leaders in this work. The composition of the 
Larger Catechism was a much more serious undertaking. 
Herbert Palmer was the leader in it. It took more than 
a year's work in the committee before it came before the 
Assembly. It was debated in the Assembly itself for 
thirteen months before adoption. It is, indeed, the most 



WHITHER ? 27 

carefully prepared of all the Westminster symbols. Its 
doctrinal statements are more guarded and more elabo- 
rate than those of the Confession of Faith. This is clear, 
especially in the doctrines of the Trinity, the Person 
and the Work of Christ, Sin, Effectual Calling, and the 
Sacraments. The reasons for these dogmatic elabora- 
tions in the Larger Catechism are to be found in the dis- 
cussions that had broken out in conflict with heresies, 
and were making headway among the English people. 
The Larger Catechism may thus be considered the ma- 
turest expression of Westminster theology. The Shorter 
Catechism was prepared chiefly by Tuckney and Wallis 
in the brief space of five weeks, on the basis of the 
Larger Catechism by way of condensation and abridg- 
ment, after the Scottish commissioners had left the 
Assembly, and after many of the ablest divines had died 
or departed to their homes in different parts of England. 

CHANGE OF ATTITUDE TO THE STANDARDS. 

When we study the history of Presbyterianism in 
America it is evident that the attitude of the Presby- 
terian Church to the Westminster Standards has entirely 
changed. 

i. The questions of government and worship, which 
were the most important things to the Westminster 
divines, have so declined in importance that the Ameri- 
can Presbyterian Church has substituted new forms of 
government and discipline for the documents so carefully 
prepared by the Westminster Assembly. And the doc- 
trinal standards which were then regarded as of less im- 
portance have risen to such supremacy that the only 
changes in them have been in questions that relate more 
or less to church government. The American Presby- 
terian Church has been radical and revolutionary in all 



28 CHANGES. 

questions of government and liturgy ; but in matters of 
doctrine has been more conservative than the West- 
minster divines themselves. 

2. The doctrinal standard that received the most at- 
tention in the Westminster Assembly, the Larger Cate- 
chism, has fallen into neglect. It is little used, and in- 
deed little known among ministers and teachers. On 
the other hand, the Shorter Catechism has become the 
favorite doctrinal standard ; and yet it is brief and often 
unguarded in its definitions. It tends to a sterner Cal- 
vinism than the Larger Catechism on account of this 
brevity and conciseness, and in many cases cannot be 
understood until it is put in the light of the Larger 
Catechism. 

3. The Westminster Standards were not composed 

with a view to subscription by ministers or elders, but 

for a public testimony of the faith of the Church. 

Anthony Tuckney tells us : 

" In the Assemblie, I gave my vote with others that the Con- 
fession of Faith, put outt by Authority, should not bee eyther re- 
quired to bee sworn or subscribed too ; wee having bin burnt in 
the hand in that kind before, but so as not to be publickly 
preached or written against." * 

Subscription to the Westminster Standards was im- 
posed upon the Scotch Church by the Scottish Parlia- 
ment, in the interest of breadth and liberty, to give all 
subscribers a right in the Church and to prevent that in- 
tolerance against the Episcopal clergy that burst out in 
Scotland at the Revolution and would drive them all 
from the Church. The Episcopal clergy who subscribed 
could not be excluded from the Church. It is thus one 
of the remarkable changes of history that a subscription 



* " Eight Letters of Dr. Antony Tuckney and Benjamin Whichcote," London, 
1753, P. 76. 



WHITHER? 29 

that was ordered in the interest of toleration should be- 
come in after years the instrument of intolerance. Sub- 
scription was not required in Ireland until 1698, and was 
never used by English Presbyterians. 

The subscription controversy that sprang up in the 
eighteenth century divided Presbyterianism in Ireland 
and America. The ablest and noblest divines resisted 
subscription as long as possible. It seemed to be neces- 
sary in order to keep out errors respecting the doctrine 
of the Trinity.* 

The founders of the American Presbyterian Church 
did not subscribe to the Westminster Standards. The 
original Presbytery of Philadelphia knew nothing of 
subscription. The Synod of Philadelphia introduced it 
in 1729 when it passed the Adopting Act in which the 
ministers 

"declare their agreement in, and approbation of, the Confes- 
sion of Faith, with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the 
Assembly of Divines at Westminster, as being in all the essential 
and necessary articles, good forms of sound words and systems 
of Christian doctrine, and do also adopt the said Confession and 
Catechisms as the confession of our faith." t 

This Adopting Act was framed by Jonathan Dickin- 
son, the greatest divine the American Presbyterian 
Church has produced. He made our subscription gen- 
erous and tolerant. We do not subscribe to every arti- 
cle, but only to " the essential and necessary articles "; 
that is, those essential to the Westminster system, as a 
system of doctrine. 

The adoption of the ecclesiastical standards was still 
more liberal. 



* See Briggs' " American Presbyterianism," pp. 194 seq. 
t /. c, pp. 218 seq. 



30 CHANGES. 

" The Synod do unanimously acknowledge and declare, that 
they judge tne Directory for Worship, Discipline, and Govern- 
ment of the Church commonly annexed to the Westminster 
Confession, to be agreeable in substance to the Word of God, 
and founded thereupon, and therefore do earnestly recommend 
the same to all their members, to be by them observed as near 
as circumstances will allow, and Christian prudence direct." 

It is clear here that the American Synod abandoned 
the jure divino Presbyterianism of the Westminster 
Standards and adopted a substantial, prudential 'Presby- 
terianism in its stead.* 

Thus far, the American Presbyterian Church made no 
revision of any of the Westminster Standards, but only 
gave a definition of the measure of their adoption by the 
American Church. The doctrinal standards were adopted 
in all essential and necessary articles, the ecclesiastical 
standards, in substance, and as near as circumstances 
will allow and Christian prudence direct. This Adopting 
Act opened a broad and generous path by its terms of 
subscription. 

REVISION OF THE STANDARDS. 

The American Presbyterian Synod in 1788 made a 
thorough revision of the Standards preparatory to con- 
stituting the General Assembly. They adopted the Con- 
stitution consisting of the Confession of Faith, the Larger 
and Shorter Catechisms, the Directory for Worship, and 
the Form of Government and Discipline. Their revision 
of the Westminster Standards was so thorough-going 
that it was revolutionary. 

1. They made a new Form of Government and Disci- 
pline which they substituted for the Westminster Form 
of Government. This was revised again in 1 805 in sev- 



* See Briggs' " American Presbyterianism," pp. 220 seq. 



WHITHER? 31 

eral chapters, and it has been revised several times in 
more recent years. The Southern Presbyterian Church, 
a few years ago, adopted a new " Book of Church 
Order," and the Northern Presbyterian Church, in 
1884-85, made a new Book of Discipline. These revis- 
ions have been so radical as to change the doctrine of 
the officers of the Church and the structure of all 
ecclesiastical bodies from the Presbytery to the General 
Assembly. 

2. The Synod of 1788 made a new Directory for 
Worship, casting the venerable Westminster Directory 
aside, not merely in its forms and language, but also in 
some of its most important principles and rules of wor- 
ship. This Directory was revised again in 1821 ; and 
again in 18S6, by the insertion of a new chapter, " Of the 
Worship of God by Offerings." 

3. The Confession of Faith was revised in 1788 in the 
three chapters: xx. 4; xxiii. 3 ; xxxi. 1, and a new doc- 
trine of the relation of Church and State was substi- 
tuted for the Westminster doctrine. In 1887 the North- 
ern Presbyterian Church revised chapter xxiv. 4, in order 
to get rid of the prohibition of marriage with a deceased 
wife's sister. The Southern Presbyterian Church made 
the same revision. Thus the Confession of Faith has 
been revised in four different chapters by the American 
Presbyterian Church. 

4. The Larger Catechism was revised in 1788 by 
striking out from Question 109 "tolerating a false re- 
ligion." The Shorter Catechism, the least important of 
the Westminster symbols, is the only one that has 
escaped revision. 

5. It is also noteworthy that the Synod of 1788 re- 
moved the whole body of proof-texts from the Stand- 
ards and published the Constitution without any proof- 



32 CHANGES. 

texts. We have seen that the Westminster Assembly 
not only had strong committees at work upon them, but 
also debated them in open Assembly. The proof-texts 
for the Confession consumed three months, and those in 
the Catechisms more than four months. The General 
Assembly in 1792 appointed a committee to prepare 
proof-texts for the Standards. This committee made a 
report of a specimen in 1794. They were directed to 
compare their work " with the proofs annexed to the 
Westminster Confession, Catechisms and Directory ; to 
revise the whole, prepare it for the press, to agree with 
the printer for its publication, and to superintend the 
printing and sending of the same." 

This careless way of adopting proof-texts, by giving 
a committee full power, is very striking when compared 
with the great pains taken in this regard by the West- 
minster Assembly. It is true these proof-texts are no 
part of the Constitution of the American Presbyterian 
Church ; but they are printed by the authority of the 
General Assembly with the Constitution, and so the 
public are deceived as to their authority. 

It is clear from this history that the American Presby- 
terian Church has been radical in its revisions of the 
Westminster Standards. The 177 ministers who consti- 
tuted the Synod that adopted the Constitution, after 
such revolutionary proceedings, were not noted for their 
wisdom or ability. They were pious, excellent, practical 
men, but there was not one really eminent divine among 
them. There was not one who could rank as a first-rate 
authority in Biblical, historical, dogmatic, or even prac- 
tical theology. They entirely set aside more than half 
of the work of the Westminster divines. There is no 
reason to doubt that they would have made a new Con- 



WHITHER ? 33 

fession of Faith and new Catechisms if they had deemed 
it wise so to do. 

It is a strange idea that has sprung up in recent times 
with the growth of American scholastic dogmatics, that 
the Confession of Faith and Catechisms are more sacred 
than the Directory for Worship and the Form of Gov- 
ernment. This conceit would have seemed very remark- 
able to the old Puritans and the Westminster divines, 
who made a life and death struggle for a church gov- 
ernment and a mode of worship that were founded, as 
they supposed, on the divine right of the sacred Scrip- 
tures. They sustained all these documents alike by 
proof-texts from the Word of God. But some of their 
children, who have forsaken them in this as well as in 
other things, now wish to exalt their work in the doc- 
trinal department above the possibility of revision. It 
is very remarkable that the Westminster divines should 
be so fallible in church government and worship and at 
the same time so infallible in their dogmatic theology. 
A deeper study of the divine Word has corrected their 
opinions in the former, as all admit ; has it left their 
views on the latter entirely unchanged? No one would 
have repudiated such inconsistency more than the West- 
minster divines themselves. 

THE MINISTRY. 

The American Presbyterian Church has made very 
important changes in the doctrine of the ministry of the 
Church. This is evident when we see side by side the 
statements of the Westminster Form of Church Govern- 
ment, the Form of Government of the American Synod 
of 1788, and the Book of Church Order of the Southern 
Presbyterian Church : 



34: 



CHANGES. 



WESTMINSTER. 



" The officers 

which Christ hath 
appointed for the 
edification of His 
Church and the per- 
fecting of the Saints 
are some extraordi- 
nary, as apostles, 
evangelists, and 

prophets, which are 
ceased. Others, or- 
dinary and perpet- 
ual, as pastors, teach- 
ers, and other church 
governors and dea- 
cons." 



NORTHERN CHURCH. 



" I. Our blessed 
Lord at first collect- 
ed his Church out 
of different nations, 
and formed it into 
one body, by the mis- 
sion of men endu- 
ed with miraculous 
gifts, which have 
long since ceased. 

" II. The ordinary 
and perpetual offi- 
cers in the Church 
are Bishops or Pas- 
tors ; the represent- 
atives of the people, 
usually styled Rul- 
ing Elders ; and Dea- 
cons." 



SOUTHERN CHURCH. 



" The ordinary and 
perpetual offices in 
the Church are, 
teaching Elders, or 
ministers of the 
Word, who are com- 
missioned to preach 
the Gospel and ad- 
minister the sacra- 
ments and also to 
rule ; Ruling Elders, 
whose office it is to 
wait on government ; 
and Deacons, whose 
function is the dis- 
tribution of the of- 
ferings of the faith- 
ful for pious uses." 



' The Southern book also divides the ministers of the 
Word into four classes — (i), the pastor; (2), the teacher; 
(3), the evangelist ; and (4), the minister called to labor 
through the press or in any other like needful work. 

There are several important changes in the doctrine 
of the ministry here. 

(1). The Westminster divines distinguish between the 
extraordinary offices of the church, " apostles, evangel- 
ists, and prophets, which are ceased," and the ordinary 
and perpetual officers, " pastors, teachers, and other 
church governors and deacons." The American Form 
of Government neglects to specify these extraordinary 
offices that are ceased. This was done in order to re- 
move the evangelists from this class. That this is the 



WHITHER? 35 

case is clear from the insertion of a section in the Form 
of Government providing for the ordaining of the evan- 
gelists, which was an innovation in the Presbyterian 
doctrine of the ministry. The Southern Church went 
still further and made the evangelist co-ordinate with 
the pastor, teacher, and editor, as four different kinds of 
teaching elders. The American Church in its history 
has made an increasing use of so-called evangelists. 
Until recent years these have been ordained ministers 
in accordance with the doctrine set forth in the Amer- 
ican Form of Government. But in recent years a consid- 
erable number of unordained evangelists have sprung 
up, and men who lay no claim to the office of the min- 
istry, and have not been recognized as ministers in any 
sense, have been preaching the Gospel in Presbyterian 
churches. There is no provision for these men in the 
order of the Presbyterian Church. I shall not attempt 
to discuss the question whether these evangelists, or- 
dained or unordained, ministers or laymen, are legit- 
imate officers in the church, and are normal develop- 
ments of Christian work. It is my purpose simply to 
call attention to the fact that lay-evangelists have no 
place in the Presbyterian Form of Government or Direc- 
tory of Worship, and to use them is illegal and disor- 
derly in the Presbyterian Church at the present time. 
It is also evident that the Westminster divines would 
not recognize our so-called ministerial evangelists as the 
evangelists of the New Testament. The Westminster 
divines were building their doctrine of church govern- 
ment on the divine right of the New Testament, and 
they endeavored to prove every item of their church 
government by one or more passages of Scripture. They 
could not find the evangelist among the permanent offi- 
cers of the Church in the New Testament. All New 



36 CHANGES. 

Testament scholars will agree with them. The evangel- 
ist in the modern Presbyterian Church is not jure divino, 
but jure humano, and is an evidence of the departure of 
modern Presbyterianism from the jure divino theory of 
church government. 

(2). The Southern Presbyterian Church recognizes the 
editor as one of the four kinds of teaching elders. This 
official recognition of the religious editor is another de- 
parture from the jure divino Presbyterianism. It is true 
that the editors have long been unofficially recognized 
as ministers in the American Presbyterian Church ; but 
so have teachers in colleges and academies, insurance 
agents and bankers, who for various reasons have with- 
drawn from the active work of the ministry and have 
entered into those various callings in life that are usually 
carried on by men who have not been ordained as minis- 
ters. In the Presbyterian Churches of Europe, the ed- 
itor, the school-teacher, the college professor, and all oth- 
ers who are not engaged as pastors and theological teach- 
ers are regarded as no longer ministers. The American 
Presbyterian Church has drifted into its present unfortu- 
nate position of recognizing all men as ministers who 
have been ordained until they have been released from the 
ministry by act of the presbytery. Whatever opinion 
any one may hold as to the propriety of an editorial 
ministry, it is certain that no one can present evidences 
for such a ministry from the New Testament. 

(3). The American Synod of 1788 substituted the 
term " ruling elders " for the Westminster term " other 
church governors," and thus took a more decided posi- 
tion on the difficult question of the elders of the Bible 
than the Westminster divines were able to take, as they 
were compelled to present to Parliament evidences from 
the Scripture for every statement they made. The 



WHITHER? 37 

American Synod also made the elders " representatives 
of the people," introducing the American republican 
idea of the eldership in place of the Westminster the- 
ory, which represents them equally with the pastors as 
" appointed by Christ." It is significant that the Ameri- 
can Synod left out the phrase " appointed by Christ " 
when they inserted the phrase " representatives of the 
people." The Westminster divines presented to Parlia- 
ment a jure divino system of church governors, but cer- 
tainly the American representative elders cannot be found 
either in the New Testament or the Old Testament. 
The elders of the American Church are not the " other 
church governors " of the Westminster divines ; still less 
do they correspond with the presbyters of the New Testa- 
ment appointed by Christ and His apostles to rule in His 
Church. The American Presbyterian elders are so differ- 
ent from the Biblical and the Westminster elders that 
they have no claim to be jure divino, but only jure humano. 
(4). The Westminster divines divided their ministry of 
the Word into two classes, pastors and teachers. The 
American Synod of 1788 reduced the two classes to one, 
using the term bishops or pastors. The Southern Church 
sums up four classes in the one term, " teaching elders." 
The Westminster divines were cautious in their state- 
ments and adhered closely to the Biblical proofs. The 
American Synod, by their use of bishop and pastor as 
synonymous terms, were more polemic in their attitude 
to diocesan bishops than the Westminster divines, who 
were willing to recognize diocesan bishops as superin- 
tending pastors, provided they were not recognized as 
of a different order of ministers by divine right. The 
Southern Church lays undue stress upon the term elder, 
and by so doing, departs from every precedent in the 
history of Presbyterianism. 



38 CHANGES. 

(5). The Synod of 1788 omitted the teacher from the 
officers of the church. This was another innovation in 
the Presbyterian doctrine of the ministry. It was con- 
nected with the omission of the section of the Westmin- 
ster Form of Government, giving the duties of the 
teacher or doctor. The Southern Presbyterian Church 
restored the teacher to his place among ministers, but 
failed to assign him his special duties, because it distrib- 
uted them among the four classes of its ministry, all of 
whom are regarded as " teaching elders." This involves 
a neglect of the specific functions of the pastor as distin- 
guished from the teacher. 

The Westminster divines make the following state- 
ment with reference to the doctor : 

" The Scripture doth hold out the name and title of a teacher, 
as well as of the pastor (1 Cor. xii. 28 ; Eph. iv. 11). Who is also 
a minister of the Word, as well as the pastor, and hath power of 
administration of the sacraments. The Lord having given dif- 
ferent gifts, and divers exercises according to these gifts, in the 
ministry of the Word (Rom. xii. 6-8 ; 1 Cor. xii. 1, 4-7). Though 
these different gifts may meet in, and accordingly be exercised 
by, one and the same minister (1 Cor. xiv. 3 ; 2 Tim. iv. 2 ; Titus 
i. 9). Yet where be several ministers in the same congregation, 
they may be designed to several employments, according to the 
different gifts in which each of them do most excel (1 Peter iv. 
10, 11). And he that doth more excel in exposition of Scripture, 
in teaching sound doctrine and in convincing gainsayers, than 
he doth in application, and is accordingly employed therein, may 
be called a teacher, or doctor. Nevertheless, where is but one 
minister in a particular congregation, he is to perform, so far as 
he is able, the whole work of the ministry (2 Tim. iv. 2 ; Titus 
i. 9 ; 1 Tim. vi. 2). A teacher, or doctor, is of most excellent use 
in schools and universities, as of old in the schools of the 
prophets, and at Jerusalem, where Gamaliel and others taught 
as doctors." 

This Westminster doctrine of the teacher or doctor is 



WHITHER? 39 

the same as that found in Cartwright's Church Government 
and the Scottish Books of Discipline. When the Amer- 
ican Synod removed the doctor from the ordinary min- 
isters of the Church, it made a change of immense im- 
portance, the consequences of which have not yet been 
fully drawn. It changed the customs and practice of 
the Presbyterian -churches in this regard. In New Eng- 
land in the seventeenth century, there was an average 
of two ordained ministers to a church. Thomas Weld * 
gives an account of the three kinds of elders that pre- 
vailed there — pastors, teachers, and ruling elders. The 
Presbyterian churches of London, Edinburgh, and Dub- 
lin in the eighteenth century ordinarily had two minis- 
ters, whenever they were sufficiently large to sustain 
them ; and it has been the custom of the Reformed 
churches of the Continent, as well as the Lutheran, to 
employ several ministers in large city churches. The 
Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church 
have pursued this policy from the earliest times. The 
American Synod departed, not only from the practice of 
the Presbyterianism of the old world, but also from the 
common customs of Christendom. It is probable that 
there was not a single church belonging to the Synod in 
1 788 that was able to employ more than one minister. It 
was exceedingly difficult to secure a sufficient number 
of ministers to supply even the larger and more import- 
ant churches each with one minister. It was doubtless 
out of the experience of American Presbyterianism that 
they blotted out the doctor and inserted the evangelist. 
But they made a mistake in putting these radical changes 
in the Constitution that they adopted for a Church that 
was to spread over a continent. 



* " Brief Narration of the Churches in New England," 1645. 



40 CHANGES. 

Long since we have had hundreds of Presbyterian 
churches in large cities and in large country towns, 
where two or more ministers have been needed to do the 
work of the churches. Many old churches have been 
divided into two or more congregations, each with its 
own minister, in accordance with the theory that each 
church should have but one minister ; and there have 
been friction and waste, where unity in a large church 
would have secured greater efficiency and progress. The 
evil is much greater in cities where a great number of 
feeble organizations is the result of the system of having 
one minister to a church, multiplying the number of 
church buildings with all the vast increase of expense 
connected therewith. This is one of the chief reasons 
why churches decay and die in the poorer sections of 
the cities. It is impossible for a few hundred people of 
small means to gather in a church building and sustain 
a pastor, with all the incidental expenses. We must 
follow the example of the old world and the experience 
of centuries, and build great buildings that will hold 
several thousand worshippers, and furnish these churches 
with several ministers, distributing the work among them 
in accordance with their several gifts. 

Our American system makes no provision for the 
variety of gifts in the Christian ministry, but goes on 
the theory that all ministers have all the gifts that are 
requisite. This theory is against the Scriptures, which 
tell us of a variety of gifts of ministry ; and it is also 
against the experience of the Church in all ages, and our 
own every-day experience. It is a matter of common 
remark that in the last generation we had too much 
preaching of doctrine ; in other words, too much of the 
teaching-gift in the ministry. The ministers were trained 
in the theological seminaries to teach, and they did 



WHITHER? 41 

teach. The work of the pastor and the preacher, so far 
as it differed from the work of the teacher, was more or 
less neglected. The consequence was, that the people 
understood the Scriptures and the doctrines of the 
Church much better than they do at present, but were 
not so much stirred up to Christian activity. Instruc- 
tion in the Catechism was almost universal. Lectures 
upon the Confession of Faith, and in exposition of the 
Scriptures, on Sabbath morning and at the weekly 
lecture, were heard gladly by the people. 

But in the present generation there has been a great 
change. The Catechism has been largely banished from 
the Sunday-school, and catechizing by ministers is the 
exception rather than the rule. The people object to 
doctrinal preaching, and even expositions of the Scrip- 
tures. The teacher retires into the background, and the 
preacher, who exhorts and applies the Word, is in de- 
mand, and is popular. Rhetorical qualifications are re- 
quired, and the question is not asked whether the min- 
ister has the Scriptural qualification, " apt to teach," but 
whether he will be popular. As a result, there is a sur- 
prising ignorance among intelligent Christians as to the 
history and doctrines of the Church, the theories of gov- 
ernment and worship, and even the Scriptures them- 
selves. They know about literature and science, but 
they know not the Bible and Christian doctrine. 

The Church has never been able to get on without the 
doctor, and his place can never be filled by ministers 
with other gifts and endowments. The Church needs 
all kinds of ministers, and it will fare badly if it neglects 
any one of them. There is a place for the doctor or 
teacher, as well as the eloquent preacher. The strong 
churches ought to have them both, and must have them 
both if they are to grow in grace and knowledge. There 



42 CHANGES. 

are very few men who can fulfil both offices. The gifts 
that make the teacher, very often prevent the man from 
being an eloquent preacher. The difference has to do 
with method of discourse, style, the choice of topics, 
and the aim of the speaker. There are very few who 
can turn from the one to the other with ease, and give 
each its proper proportion in his ministry. 

This is an age of consolidation, centralization, and 
more efficient organization in business, in politics, and 
in education ; but the Church of Jesus Christ lags be- 
hind, too conservative in its methods to be efficient. In 
business, little shops have largely given place to large 
stores, and where there were a hundred firms a few years 
ago in one line of business, there are now ten ; and there 
are many instances in which all the business has come to 
a head in the control of one mind. But the Christian 
Church goes on in the policy of splitting up into little, 
half-starved, feeble detachments. An army in these 
days marches in great hosts, a vast organism. But the 
army of the Lord is broken up into little companies, 
without any efficient organization or guidance. 

We ought to have in mind the cathedral establish- 
ments of the Old World, and great Protestant organiza- 
tions, such as Spurgeon's tabernacle in London, which 
are centres of religious life to vast communities. The 
problem of preaching the Gospel to the poor in the great 
cities will never be solved except in some such way. 
Great preachers are few in number. But some may be 
found who can preach to several thousand people as 
easily as to several hundred. Such a man, sustained by 
a band of ministers, some with teaching gifts, some with 
pastoral gifts, some with gifts of eloquence for exhorta- 
tion, and some with executive gifts for organizing Chris- 
tian work, would do an amount of good for Christ and 



WHITHER? 43 

His cause that no man can do under present conditions. 
There is great value in consolidation and in large or- 
ganizations in the Church, as well as in the State and in 
business life. In such a Church the doctor would have 
his place and importance, and would co-operate with all 
other arms of the service of the Lord in the common 
work of advancing the kingdom of God in the world. 

THE PRESBYTERY. 

A presbytery is a body of presbyters or elders, how- 
ever small or great. All ecclesiastical courts, from the 
highest to the lowest, are presbyteries. Usage may 
give the term to one body rather than to another; but 
in fact, it belongs to them all, and it is this theory 
of government that gives the Presbyterian Church its 
name. 

The American presbytery was organized in the spring 
of 1706, in the city of Philadelphia, by three pastors 
and four missionaries. It was essentially a " meeting of 
ministers" as Francis Makemie describes it, " for minis- 
terial exercise," " to consult the most proper measures 
for advancing religion and propagating Christianity." * 
It did not include all the ministers of the Presbyterian 
faith and order ; but the presbytery grew as other min- 
isters and congregations united with it. It did not 
claim any jurisdiction except over those who voluntarily 
joined it. There were many ministers and churches 
that remained independent. The Presbyterianism of 
America was not homogeneous. There were English, 
Irish, Scotch, Welsh, French, German, Dutch, and Swiss 
Presbyterians, and it seems to have been the design of 
Providence that these should unite only by degrees, 



* See Briggs' "American Presbyterianism," p. 142. 



44 CHANGES. 

after many generations of experience in a condition of 
separation. This coexistence of different Presbyterian 
bodies within the same territory without organic union, 
has been a prominent feature of American Presbyterian- 
ism from the beginning. 

In 17 16 the presbytery divided itself "into subor- 
dinate meetings or presbyteries," three in number, and 
invited the Puritan ministers on Long Island to unite 
with them and make a fourth presbytery ; and so the 
Synod of Philadelphia was constituted. 

In 1 741 the Synod of Philadelphia was broken in 
twain by an unhappy contest, and two rival synods were 
constituted, the Synod of New York and the Synod of 
Philadelphia. These united in 1758 as the Synod of 
New York and Philadelphia. In 1788 this synod divided 
itself into four synods, and constituted a General As- 
sembly. The Constitution gives the accompanying doc- 
trine of Presbyterian government, which we place along- 
side of the similar doctrine of the Westminster Form of 
Church Government. (See next page.) 

The comparison shows some very striking differences. 
The Westminster form is not as detailed as the Ameri- 
can form — for these details were given in special eccle- 
siastical legislation in the English and Scotch Churches. 

(1). The American Synod substituted the term '''■expe- 
dient" for the Westminster "lawful" and added to the 
phrase " agreeable to the Scripture," " and the practice 
of the primitive Christians^ This shows a virtual 
abandonment of the doctrine of Presbyterian govern- 
ment by divine right, or law, and the basing of the doc- 
trine on the principle of expediency, which was enforced 
not merely by an appeal to Scripture, which alone satis- 
fied the Westminster divines, but by an appeal to the 
practice of the primitive Christians. I doubt whether 



WHITHER? 



45 



WESTMINSTER. 



It is lawful, and agreeable to 
the Word of God, that the 
Church be governed by several 
sorts of assemblies, which are 
Congregational, Classical, and 
Synodical. 

The ruling officers of a partic- 
ular congregation have power, 
authoritatively, to call before 
them any member of the con- 
gregation, as they shall see just 
occasion. 

A Presbytery consisteth of 
ministers of the Word, and such 
other publick officers as are 
agreeable to and warranted by 
the Word of God, to be the 
Church-governors, to join with 
the ministers in the government 
of the Church. 

Synodical assemblies may law- 
fully be of several sorts, as pro- 
vincial, national, and oecumeni- 
cal. 

It is lawful and agreeable to 
the Word of God, that there be 
a subordination of Congrega- 
tional, Classical, Provincial, and 
National Assemblies, for the 
government of the Church. 



AMERICAN. 



We hold it to be expedient, 
and agreeable to Scripture and 
the practice of the primitive 
Christians, that the church be 
governed by congregational, 
presbyterial, and synodical as- 
semblies. 

The church session consists 
of the pastor or pastors, and rul- 
ing elders, of a particular con- 
gregation. 



A presbytery consists of all 
the ministers, and one ruling 
elder from each congregation, 
within a certain district. 



A synod is a convention of 
the bishops and elders within a 
larger district, including at least 
three presbyteries. 

The General Assembly shall 
consist of an equal delegation of 
bishops and elders from each 
presbytery. 



46 CHANGES. 

the Westminster divines would have been so positive 
here as our American Synod. It would be rather diffi- 
cult to establish any such elaborate presbyterial govern- 
ment among primitive Christians as synodical assem- 
blies. 

(2). We notice the abandonment by the American 
Synod of the term "classical" assemblies, and the sub- 
stitution of the term presbyterial. The term presbytery 
is a Scotch term. The Churches of the Continent are 
followed by the Reformed Churches in America in the 
use of the term classis. This was the term used by the 
Westminster divines when they organized the Provincial 
Assembly of London with twelve classes, in 1647. It is 
true the term presbytery appears in the Westminster 
Form given above, but this was as a variant of their 
usual term classis, and it was doubtless to please the 
Scottish commissioners. We think that the term classis 
is a better one for several reasons : (a). It is inappropri- 
ate to take the term presbytery, which belongs properly 
to all of these bodies from the highest to the lowest, 
and use it for one of them. It has had the unfortunate 
effect that presbyteries in Scotland and America have 
had an exaggerated idea of their own importance, as if 
they were the fountain of Presbyterian government, 
when really they are simply an intermediate body with 
the provincial synod between the fundamental body, 
the congregational presbytery (or session), and the cul- 
minating body, the national synod (or General Assem- 
bly). In the history of Presbyterianism, especially in 
America, the presbytery has too often lorded it over the 
congregation in an un-presbyterian manner, and has 
even ventured to regard the General Assembly as its 
creature, on a theory of Presbyterianism that corre- 
sponds with that of State's rights in the nation, (b). In 



WHITHER? 47 

view of a future union with the Reformed bodies, we 
shall have to resume the more appropriate name classis, 
which is common to the Presbyterian and Reformed 
world. We cannot expect them to take a term which 
is peculiar to Scotch Presbyterianism. 

(3). The classical presbytery in American Presbyterian- 
ism is a very peculiar body in the Presbyterian world. 
According to the Westminster model, it consists of 
ministers of the Word and other Church governors ; ac- 
cording to the American Synod, it was to consist of 
" ALL the ministers and one ruling elder from each con- 
gregation within a certain district." There are several 
important changes here. The little word "all" makes 
a vast difference. The Westminster divines knew of 
only two kinds of ministers of the Word — namely, pas- 
tors and doctors. These pastors were pastors of church- 
es, and these doctors were either associated with them 
in the ministry of particular congregations, and so mem- 
bers of the congregational presbytery, or else were ap- 
pointed to teach in institutions of learning. The West- 
minster divines did not recognize evangelists as a class 
of ministers. They held that this class disappeared with 
the apostles and prophets in apostolic times. There- 
fore the ministerial members of presbytery were all 
members of congregational presbyteries, with the ex- 
ception of the theological professors in the universities. 

The ministers of the Word were no less representa- 
tives of the parochial presbyteries than the elders. The 
American presbytery, however, was organized with only 
three pastors and four missionaries without charge, and 
was really a meeting of ministers, to which the elders, as 
representatives of the congregations, were appended. It 
would seem that congregations did not send elders un- 
less their ministers went to presbytery; for in 1716 the 



48 CHANGES. 

question was raised whether an elder might sit in the 
absence of his minister, and it was carried in the affirma- 
tive. This American custom of regarding all ordained 
ministers as members of presbytery, whether attached to 
congregations or not, has continued until the present 
time. It was put in the constitution by the little word 
" all." When now we consider the immense number of 
ministers who have been, and still continue to be, evan- 
gelists in the peculiarly American sense of the word, and 
how large a number of stated supplies and chapel mis- 
sionaries we have who are not pastors ; and then again 
observe that the doctor has no place in the congrega- 
tional presbyteries ; we see very clearly that an Ameri- 
can presbytery is a very different presbytery from a 
Westminster presbytery, or a presbytery in any of the 
Presbyterian churches of the Old World. 

PRESBYTERIAN WORSHIP. 

There have been great changes in the mode of worship 
in Presbyterian churches since the Westminster Assem- 
bly. The worship of God in all Christian churches is 
essentially the same, embracing the reading of the Word 
of God, prayer, songs of praise, the sacraments, and 
preaching of the Gospel. The differences consist in the 
order of worship, the ceremonies, the sacred times, and 
those who conduct the services. In the conflicts of 
Puritanism with Prelacy in Great Britain, the Presby- 
terians were led to emphasize the spirituality of worship, 
and to oppose the imposition of liturgies, ceremonies, 
and a priesthood. On the other hand, the prelatical 
party laid too much stress upon holy days, ceremonies, 
and liturgies. In the Church of England, the sacrament 
of the Lord's Supper was the most essential thing in 
public worship. In this it agreed with the Lutheran, 



WHITHER? 49. 

Roman Catholic, and Greek Churches. But the Puritans 
made the preaching of the Word of God the most essen- 
tial thing, and so the pulpit took the place of the altar 
in Presbyterian churches, and the sermon became the 
centre about which prayers and praise and the reading 
of the Scriptures were grouped, to which was appended 
the observance of the Lord's Supper. If it has been a 
fault of the Episcopal churches that they have neglected 
the sermon, it has been a fault of Presbyterian churches 
that they have neglected the other parts of public worship. 
The tendency in the Presbyterian Church has been from 
bad to worse since the Westminster Assembly. One 
may trace this descent by comparing the Directory of 
Worship in its successive revisions with the worship of 
Presbyterian congregations in our day. The American 
Presbyterian churches are drifting toward an uncertain 
future. The public worship in many of our Presbyterian 
churches is so different from the Directory, that our 
Presbyterian fathers could not recognize it as Presby- 
terian ; and in many respects the American Episcopal 
churches are more conformed to the Westminster ideal 
than their Presbyterian neighbors. 

It is instructive to compare the order of worship of the 
Westminster Directory with that of the Directory for 
the American Presbyterian Church. (See next page.) 

Here several changes attract attention : 

(1). The collection is inserted immediately before the 
benediction. The custom in the Presbyterian churches 
of Great Britain is to take up the collection at the door 
of the church, and thus it is no part of the order of wor- 
ship. The American Directory gives it a place in the 
order of worship. But it is only within a few years that 
our churches have risen to the conception that giving is 
itself an act of worship. Accordingly the Church has 



50 



CHANGES. 



WESTMINSTER. 


AMERICAN. 


(i). Prayer of invocation. 


Prayer of invocation. 


(2). Reading of Scriptures. 


Reading of Scriptures. 


(3). Psalm. 


Psalm or hymn. 


(4). Prayer, (a) confession, 


Prayer, {a) adoration, 


(b) petitions, 


(b) thanksgiving, 


(c) intercession, 


(c) confession, 


(d) consecration. 


(d) petitions, 




(e) pleading, 




(/) intercession. 


(5). Sermon. 


Sermon. 


(6). Prayer, (a) thanksgiving, 


Prayer, special petitions. 


(b) special petitions. 




(7). Lord's Prayer. 


Psalm. 


(8). Psalm. 


Collection. 


(9). Blessing. 


Benediction. 



added to the Directory : " Of the worship of God with 
our substance " (chap. vi.). The offerings of the people 
are to be consecrated by prayer. This is the greatest 
improvement that the Presbyterian Church has yet made 
in the matter of worship. 

(2). The Westminster Directory provided for the sing- 
ing of two psalms. The American Church, after a long 
and severe contest, introduced the singing of hymns in 
addition to the psalms. This is provided for in our 
Directory, in the permission to use a hymn instead of a 
psalm in the first exercise of singing. The churches have 
continued to improve in sacred music, so that there are 
few churches that do not sing at least three times in the 
course of the service. Many of our churches have ad- 
ditional pieces of sacred song at the beginning of the 
service, and in connection with the collection of the offer- 



WHITHER? 51' 

ings. The service of song has been improved still fur- 
ther by the use of organs and other musical instruments 
and trained singers. But with these improvements other 
changes have come of a more doubtful character. One 
of these is the custom of beginning worship with a dox- 
ology, which is contrary to the theory of the order of 
worship in both Directories. Another is the neglect of 
the psalms, and an almost exclusive use of hymns in our 
churches. The older hymn-books gave the entire Psalter 
by itself, but the majority of our modern hymn-books 
give only a portion of the psalms, and these are buried 
in the midst of a much greater number of hymns, and 
they are seldom used. Many Presbyterian churches use 
the Psalter for responsive readings. The Psalter ought 
to be used regularly as an essential part of the service of 
song. I see no other way of regaining lost ground than 
by introducing the chanting of the psalms as a regular 
part of our worship.' The American Presbyterian Church 
has departed So far from the Westminster Directory and 
its own Directory in this matter of song, that all uni- 
formity of worship has disappeared. The official hymn- 
book of the Church has been driven from the field by 
private collections, some of which are much better. 
Every congregation does what seems right in its own 
eyes, and the churches are in all stages of advancement 
and of deterioration in their worship. Our Presbyterian 
fathers did not apprehend the importance of this sub- 
ject, and the churches have done well to improve upon 
their tasteless notions of psalm-singing. But we ought 
to aim at something that is high and noble, and in 
accordance with the genius of Presbyterianism, and we 
should advance toward it as a Church. The present 
situation is abnormal and chaotic. 

(3). The American Directory made a change in the 



52 CHANGES. 

order of topics of prayer. The Westminster Directory- 
agrees with the practice of all the Reformed Churches 
in beginning the long prayer with confession of sin and 
petition for pardon. This was followed by petition for 
the Holy Spirit and for sanctification. The next topic 
was intercession, and the prayer concludes with conse- 
cration. Thanksgiving comes in the prayer after ser- 
mon. But the American Directory removed the thanks- 
giving from the closing prayer, and put it after adora- 
tion in the long prayer. This gave the long prayer, al- 
ready too long, greater length by the addition of two 
more topics, and made it disproportionate and burden- 
some in the morning worship. The American Directory 
made an improvement when it added the topic pleading 
after petition, and before intercession ; but it made two 
blunders in omitting consecration and the Lord's Prayer. 
The Westminster Directory begins the topic of consecra- 
tion in the following admirable mariner : 

"And, with confidence of his mercy to his whole Church, 
and the acceptance of our persons through the merits and medi- 
ation of our High-Priest, the Lord Jesus, to profess that it is the 
desire of our soules to have fellowship with God in the reverent 
and conscionable use of his holy Ordinances ; and to that purpose 
to pray earnestly for his grace." 

This is a part of prayer which is commonly neglected 
by our ministers. 

The Westminster Directory, in connection with the 
prayer after sermon, says : 

"And because the Prayer which Christ taught his Disciples is 
not only a Patern of Prayer, but itself a most comprehensive 
Prayer, we recommend it also to be used in the Prayers of the 
Church." 

It is unfortunate that this was left out of the Amer- 
ican Directory, for it has permitted the practice of a few 



WHITHER? 53 

Presbyterian ministers, who refuse to use the Lord's 
Prayer in public worship on the ground of its liturgical 
character. 

(4). The Westminster Directory for prayer is much 
fuller than the American Directory ; so full indeed that 
it gives a minister not only the order of topics of prayer, 
but the very words that are most appropriate to use in 
the variety of matters that come under these topics. 
On this account, it is much more helpful than the Ameri- 
can Directory to the young minister. The American 
Synod made a mistake when they cut it down so ma- 
terially. They left out some of the most important 
matters. One omission seems to have been connected 
with a change of doctrine. The Westminster Directory 
directs the minister 

"to pray for the propagation of the Gospel and Kingdom of 
Christ to all nations, for the conversion of the Jews, the fullnesse 
of the Gentiles, the fall of Antichrist, and the hastning of the 
second coming of our Lord." 

This petition is in accordance with the Confession of 
Faith and the Catechisms, and it is one of the most im- 
portant to be made in public worship, and yet it was 
blotted out by the American Synod in 1788. The rea- 
sons for doing it were because, (a), they had lost the 
Westminster conception of a world-wide church and 
kingdom of Jesus Christ, and the Westminster sense of 
the duty of preaching the Gospel to all nations. It is 
sometimes represented that the Westminster divines 
were at fault in this particular. This is a mistake. 
They were the principal organizers of the first mission- 
ary society in Great Britain, to aid John Eliot and 
others in missions for the American Indians.* They 



* See Briggs' M American Presbyterianism," p. 99. 



54 CHANGES. 

showed their interest by this petition of their Directory. 
The American Synod showed their lack of interest by 
removing it. (b). Another reason was that the American 
Synod had changed the Westminster doctrine of the 
Second Advent. The Westminster divines believed 
with the ancient Church and the Reformers that the 
advent of Christ was at hand, and that it was their duty 
to watch for it and pray for it. But it is probable that 
the American Synod had adopted the modern theory 
that a millennium was to precede the Advent, and there- 
fore there was no interest in the prayer for the conver- 
sion of the Jews and for the Advent itself. They al- 
lowed these Westminster doctrines to remain in the 
Confession and Catechisms, which they could accept in 
accordance with the generous American terms of sub- 
scription ; but they were unwilling to leave these doc- 
trines in the forms for public prayer to be used on every 
Sabbath of the year. 

The Directory does not bind the ministers to the use 
of this order of topics, but grants him liberty to vary 
them ; and the ministers certainly make greater use of 
their liberty than they do of the order. Liberty is not 
license. It was designed that the order should be fol- 
lowed, unless there were occasional reasons to change it. 
But we apprehend that the order of topics in public 
prayer has very little practical influence upon our 
ministers. Many of them seem to forget that the 
prayers of the public service are common prayer ; that 
they are to lead their people in devotion, and that their 
private feelings have no place there. Many ministers 
have the notion that the prayers are to be framed to 
suit the sermon, so as to give the theme for the day. 
Accordingly, the topics of common prayer are omitted, 
and the long prayer is really an introduction to the ser- 



WHITHER? 55 

mon. But the prayers of the people are their prayers, 
and the minister is simply their leader. None of the 
topics of prayer should be omitted without strong and 
special reasons. A reform is needed in Presbyterian 
prayers. I doubt whether much can be accomplished in 
this direction without a partial and voluntary Liturgy. 

(5). In Reading the Scriptures, there have also been 
very important changes. The Westminster Directory 
gives the following : 

" How large a portion shall be read at once, is left to the wis- 
dom of the Minister; But it is convenient, that ordinarily one 
Chapter of each Testament be read at every meeting ; and some- 
times more, where the Chapter be short, or the coherence of the 
matter requireth it. It is requisite that all the Canonical Books 
be read over in order, that the people may be better acquainted 
with the whole body of the Scriptures : and ordinarily, where the 
Reading in either Testament endeth on one Lord's day, it is to 
begin the next." 

This was reduced in the American Directory to the 
following: 

" How large a portion shall be read at once, is left to the dis- 
cretion of every minister: however, in each service, he ought to 
read, at least, one chapter ; and more, when the chapters are 
short, or the connection requires it." 

Here are two changes: (a), The reduction of the 
minimum amount from one chapter of each Testament 
to one chapter of the Bible ; (&), the omission of the pro- 
vision for reading the entire Bible before the congrega- 
tion. The latter provision is one of great importance, 
and yet it is not given by the Westminster divines in the 
best form. There are considerable portions of the Scrip- 
tures that are not suited for public reading. But the 
greater part of the Bible is suited for public worship, and 
it ought to be read to the congregation. I once heard 
an Anglican bishop in a sermon charge Presbyterians 



56 CHANGES. 

with neglecting the public reading of the Scripture. I 
boiled with indignation at the time, but subsequent re- 
flection convinced me that he was correct. The Epis- 
copal churches secure the full reading of the most 
important parts of Scripture in the lessons for the eccle- 
siastical year. But the reading of the Scriptures in Pres- 
byterian churches is left to the minister, who selects his 
passages to suit his sermon, and the consequence is that 
only a small portion of the Scriptures ever comes before 
the congregation in the public reading. 

(6). The Westminster Directory gives an appendix 
" touching days and places for public worship," and it 
takes the position that " Festival days, vulgarly called 
Holy-days, having no warrant in the Word of God, are 
not to be continued." The American Synod happily 
blotted this out. There is nothing in our Directory to 
forbid the observance of the holy-days of the Christian 
year, and our churches in increasing numbers are ob- 
serving the most important of them, such as Christmas, 
Good Friday, and Easter. The Westminster divines were 
not as wise in this as they were in most matters of faith 
and practice. The experience of the Christian world is 
more valuable. The Presbyterian Churches of America 
should follow the Presbyterian Churches of the conti- 
nent of Europe and keep the Christian year. 

(7). The Westminster divines laid great stress upon 
Fasting, both in the Confession and the Directory. The 
Directory gives full instruction for public fast days, and 
the Form of Government prescribes fasting in connection 
with ordination of ministers. The American Directory, 
in chap, xiv., retains the rules for fasting in a shortened 
form. Our Presbyterian fathers were as zealous for fast- 
ing as their Anglican rivals, but the American Presbyteri- 
ans of our day seem to have abandoned fasting altogether. 



WHITHER ? 



57 



The American Synod was radical in the changes it in- 
troduced in the Form of Government and Directory of 
Worship, departing from the Westminster Symbols and 
the Presbyterian Churches of Europe in many important 
respects. This spirit of freedom and enterprise and fear- 
less progress in our American Presbyterianism of one hun- 
dred years ago is in striking contrast with the tradition- 
alism and conservatism of later times. The American 
Presbyterian Church has leaned heavily upon the work of 
the Synod of 1788, and has not carried on the work that 
they so well began. The Synod of 1788 adapted the 
Presbyterian forms of government and worship, that had 
been brought from the Old World, to the circumstances 
of the New World. Their successors have ever been reluc- 
tant to follow their example, and have thought rather 
of adapting the American people and the circumstances 
of the country to the Presbyterian Constitution. That 
little band of 177 ministers had no idea of establishing a 
Constitution for all time. They opened a way. for the re- 
visions that they certainly expected. They did not hesi- 
tate to go in the face of the Westminster divines and the 
experience of the Presbyterianism of Europe. They had 
no such conceit as to suppose that a great Church of 
thousands of ministers would regard their work as final. 
They did a brave and noble act when they tried to adapt 
these Westminster documents to the circumstances of the 
infant Republic. Their adaptations were remarkably far- 
sighted and excellent, but they did not foresee all that has 
taken place in the last hundred years, and they could not 
provide for the changed circumstances. Their work was 
thus far defective. On the other hand, they made mis- 
takes in some of their changes. The older documents were 
better in not a few cases. The changes were perhaps nec- 
essary in the infancy of the Republic and of our Church. 



58 



CHANGES. 



But now that the nation and the Church have become 
older, the circumstances have become more like those of 
the Presbyterian Churches of Europe, and the older docu- 
ments have in some respects become more suitable than 
the revisions. 

The American Presbyterian Church cannot afford to 
remain in bondage to the Constitution of 1788. It has in 
many respects outgrown it. Those are the true Ameri- 
can Presbyterians who have the spirit of the Synod of 
1788, rather than those who insist upon adhering rigidly 
to the forms they have given us. We should not hesi- 
tate to follow their example and revise the Constitution 
of 1788, making it more worthy of the Church of our day 
and the circumstances in which we are now placed. 

RELIGION AND MORALS. 

A study of the structure of the Westminster doctrinal 
symbols and an outline of their contents reveals another 
important change in the attitude of modern Presbyteri- 
anism. These standards are grouped about the three 
historic documents — the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' 
Creed, and the Ten Commandments — expressing relig- 
ion, doctrine, and morals, the three great divisions of 
systematic theology. The Westminster symbols deal 
with these topics as follows: 





CONFESSION 


LARGER 
CATECHISM. 


SHORTER 
CATECHISM. 


(1) Doctrine of the Scrip- 
tures 


10 Sects. 
82 " 
28 " 
52 " 


11 Quests. 

85 

61 

39 " 


7 Quests. 
39 " 
45 " 
16 


(2) Doctrines of Faith 

(3) Morals 


(4) Religion 






Total 


172 Sects. 


196 Quests. 


107 Quests. 








WHITHER? 59 

The Confession lays the greatest stress upon doctrines 
of faith. This is but natural in view of the fact that the 
Directory of Worship and Form of Government dealt 
with the other departments. The Larger Catechism in- 
creases the amount of material under the head of mor- 
als, due to the elaborate exposition of the Ten Com- 
mands under the influence of Antony Tuckney. In 
the Shorter Catechism morals becomes the most im- 
portant section. The doctrine of the Scriptures is funda- 
mental in all the documents. 

It is clear from this table that the current theology is 
not justified in laying so much stress upon doctrines of 
faith, and so little stress upon religion and morals. The 
theology of the Presbyterian Church long ago aban- 
doned the proportions of the Westminster symbols and 
overrated the importance of doctrines in comparison 
with religion and morals. The Westminster divines 
themselves are not without blame here. The natural 
order of treatment is religion, doctrines of faith, and 
morals. 

As Henry B. Smith says : 

"(a) Logically, religion is first: for the facts must precede 
the science of them, (b) Psychologically, religion is first : for 
the consciousness must precede the reflection upon it. (c) His- 
torically, religion is always first. Yet (d) a true religion and a 
true theology are, in advanced culture, inseparable. True re- 
ligion cannot be preserved without a true theology; nor can 
there be a vital theology without a vital religious experience." * 

The first thing should be the religious life itself as 
expressed in the " Lord's Prayer," then the Creed giving 
the articles of Faith, and the whole should conclude 
with the Ten Commands as a guide to a holy life. The 



* " Introduction to Christian Theology," p. 55. N. Y.: A. C. Armstrong. 



60 CHANGES. 

faulty order of the Westminster symbols was the occa- 
sion of the neglect of religion and morals and the undue 
exaltation of dogma in Presbyterian circles. For it is a 
weakness of human nature to give chief attention to 
those things that come first. There are few minds that 
will sustain their interest to the end or give proportion- 
ate attention to the whole of any subject. 

It is also noteworthy that the Catechisms divide them- 
selves into two parts rather than three in the answer to the 
question, " What do the Scriptures principally teach ? " 
"A. The Scriptures principally teach, what man is to 
believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of 
man." This answer, taken strictly, embraces the whole 
department of Christian worship and the means of 
grace under the head of duty to God. This is a serious 
fault. Doubtless it is our duty to worship God and use 
the means of grace for our salvation. But it is also our 
duty to believe in God and maintain sound doctrine. 
Worship is something more than duty to God : it is an 
unspeakable privilege, an expression of love and grati- 
tude to our God and Saviour prior in the experience of 
most Christians to any sense of moral obligation. It is 
exceedingly unfortunate that the worship of God and 
the use of the sacraments have been directed in so many 
persons and churches by the sense of duty, and that 
Christian love has been overwhelmed by law. When 
duty is discriminated from faith, it is also necessary to 
distinguish religion also. For religion is prior in the 
order of experience. The religious life precedes doc- 
trines of faith and the ethical precepts that govern it. 
Lutheran and Reformed scholasticism, and the me- 
chanical systems that scholasticism engendered, crushed 
the religious spirit and produced a dead orthodoxy. It 
is one of the chief merits of Schleiermacher that he 



WHITHER? 



Gl 



began the work of reconstructing Christian theology by 
unfolding the richness and fulness of vital religion as 
prior to all creeds and ethical systems however sim- 
ple. 

Religion is a life before it is a faith and gains a char- 
acter. It is a life of union with the living God, of com- 
munion with the living Messiah, of worship of the 
adorable Trinity. When this living religion is absent, 
dry scholastic creeds and cold ethical systems are of lit- 
tle value for the reformation of the individual, the 
nation, or the world. It is the life of religion that 
animates the creed with Christian experience and makes 
Christian ethics glow with holy love. 

Doubtless there are Christian churches that lay too 
little stress upon doctrines of faith, but the Presbyterian 
and Congregational Churches have not this defect ; they 
err in the neglect of the religious element ; they are 
at present marked by the prevalent low views of the 
Church and its sacraments, and loose views and prac- 
tices in public worship. These Churches have declined 
from the high views of their own standards. They are 
so far behind, that progress in theology consists for them 
in first rising to the height of the Westminster symbols, 
and then, from these as a basis, rising to something still 
higher. It may be that Episcopalians and other litur- 
gical churches lay too much stress upon the order of 
worship, but Presbyterians over-emphasize the order of 
the divine decrees and the order of salvation. It is im- 
portant for each denomination to recognize its defects 
and overcome them. Presbyterians, Congregationalists, 
and Baptists are behind in the whole department of re- 
ligion ; Episcopalians and Methodists in the department 
of doctrines of Faith ; and all churches are sadly behind 
in morals. Let there be an advance along the whole 



02 CHANGES. 

line, and these mistaken attitudes of the traditional 
Orthodoxy will be abandoned, the barriers of Christian 
union will be removed, sectarianism and intolerance will 
vanish away, and the Church of Christ will enjoy its 
ideal visible unity. 









CHAPTER IV. 
Shifting. 

It is a very significant sign of the times that Protest- 
ant divines have so generally undermined the principles 
of the Reformation. The three great principles of the 
Reformation were — (i), The sole authority of the Holy 
Scriptures ; (2), Justification by faith alone; and (3), Sal- 
vation by the divine grace alone. These three principles 
have all been changed by modern divines in the inter- 
ests of other dogmas. We shall limit ourselves in this 
chapter to the principle of the sole authority of the 
Scriptures. 

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

The Westminster doctrine of the Scriptures is an 
admirable doctrine. It corresponds with the statements 
of the Scriptures themselves, as well as with the faith 
of the Reformation. The advance in the science of 
Biblical criticism in recent timeb has brought evangeli- 
cal critics into entire sympathy with it. It corre- 
sponds with the facts of the case and the results of a 
scientific study of the Bible. They accept the Confes- 
sion of Faith, and build upon it, and use it to destroy 
the false doctrines that dogmaticians have taught in its 
place. These false doctrines are partly extra-confes- 
sional, sharpening the definitions of the Westminster 
symbols by undue refinements and assumed logical de- 
ductions, such as, (a) the addition of the adjective 

(63) 



Q± SHIFTING. 

verbal to inspiration, and (b) the use of the term in- 
errancy with reference to the entire body of the Scrip- 
tures. They are chiefly contra-confessional, substituting 
false doctrines for the real faith of the Church in these 
two particulars,'^) basing the authority of the Scriptures 
upon the testimony of the ancient Church, and (d) mak- 
ing the inspiration of the Scriptures depend upon their 
supposed human authors. We shall briefly consider each 
one of these errors. 

VERBAL INSPIRATION. 

The late Dr. A. A. Hodge stated* that " the Presby- 
terian Church, in unison with all evangelical Christians, 
teaches that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, having been given by the immediate and plenary 
inspiration of God, are both in meaning and verbal ex- 
pression the word of God to man." This statement is 
correct except in the phrase " and verbal expression," 
which is entirely false. Dr. Hodge had no authority to 
define the faith of the Presbyterian Church and of 
evangelical Christians. The faith of the Church is con- 
tained in the creeds ; and no confession of faith or 
catechism of recognized standing in the Reformed or 
Lutheran Church, teaches that the Scriptures are in- 
spired in their verbal expression. 

Dr. Hodge and Dr. Warfield also stated f that " the 
line can never rationally be drawn between the thoughts 
and words of Scripture." This is the private opinion of 
these gentlemen, but it is not the official doctrine of the 
Church. Other scholars, wiser and greater than they, 



* " Presbyterian Doctrine Briefly Stated," p. 8, Presbyterian Board of Publica- 
tion, Philadelphia. 

\ Presbyterian Review, vol. ii., p. 235. 



WHITHER ? 65 

deny it and the creeds do not affirm it. It is a narrow- 
ing and sharpening of the broader Westminster defini- 
tion. These divines claim that their view is the only 
rational one. But we affirm that it is no more rational 
than it is confessional or Biblical. Their reasoning has 
advanced to verbal inspiration. They cannot halt in 
their logic, but must accept the consequences. Verbal 
inspiration makes the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and 
Greek documents as they came from the hands of their 
writers, the only inspired Word of God. If the line 
cannot be drawn between the thoughts and words of 
Scripture, we cannot separate the inspired thoughts 
from the inspired words, — we cannot transfer the in- 
spired thoughts into other words. No version, however 
excellent, can contain the inspired Word of God. Prot- 
estants claim that no version can be so inspired as the 
originals, because it is impossible to perfectly translate the 
inspired thought from one set of words into another set 
of words, and therefore in all disputes we must go to the 
original texts. But all true Protestants believe that the 
inspired thought may be transferred into the translations 
of the Scriptures, which alone the people and the ma- 
jority of their teachers are able to use. A faithful transla- 
tion does transfer the inspired thought, and those trans- 
lations are most faithful that transfer the thought into 
new words rather than those that aim at verbal corre- 
spondence. The theory of verbal inspiration cannot 
admit inspired thoughts in other than inspired words. 
It therefore results in the denial that there are inspired 
thoughts in the English Bible. It cuts off the Christian 
people from the real word of God and gives them a 
human substitute. It cuts off the most of the advocates 
of this theory themselves, for it is one of their charac- 
teristics that they prefer the a priori work of dogmatic 



66 SHIFTING. 

theology to the more difficult and detailed work of 
Greek and Hebrew exegesis. Who would trust the 
majority of the dogmatic divines of the eighteenth and 
nineteenth centuries in nice points of Biblical criticism 
or interpretation ? Verbal inspiration makes Biblical 
critics the only real priests of the Bible, the mediators 
of the divine mysteries, who alone have real access to 
the originals. And yet these disciples of verbal inspira- 
tion are the very ones who are sounding the alarm 
that the critics are destroying the Bible. The critics 
are destroying the scholastic theory of verbal inspira- 
tion, but they are bringing the Biblical doctrine of 
plenary inspiration into its true place and importance. 

We shall give the opinions of a few Presbyterians of 
the seventeenth century on this subject, in order to show 
how far modern divines have departed from the West- 
minster doctrine of the Bible. 

" All language or writing is but the vessel, the symbol, or dec- 
laration of the rule, not the rule itself. It is a certain form or 
means by which the divine truth cometh unto us, as things are 
contained in words, and because the doctrine and matter of the 
text is not made unto one, but by words and a language which I 
understand ; therefore I say, the Scripture in English is the rule 
and ground of my faith, and whereupon I relying have not a 
humane, but a divine authority for my faith." * 

" For it is not the shell of the words, but the kernel of the 
matter which commends itself to the consciences of men, and 
that is the same in all languages. The Scriptures in English, 
no less than in Hebrew or Greek, display its lustre and exert its 
power and discover the character of its divine original." f 

" I could easily demonstrate that the Scripture calls the originall 
translated Scripture and not without just reason, for the Scrip- 
ture stands not in cor t ice verborum but in medulla sensus, its the 
same wine in this vessel which was drawn out of that. Transla- 



* William Lyford, " Plain Man's Sense Exercised," etc., p. 49. 
t Matthew Poole, " Blow at the Root," London, 1679, p. 234. 



WHITHER? 67 

tions are but vessels or taps (as I may call them) to set Scriptures 
abroach ; as for faults and errours in that translation, if that argu- 
ment be able to batter and make a breach, let it but have rope 
enough, and it will make as great a breach in the Hebrew, for 
when you come to find that there are variae lectiones, and that 
in the margent truer than that in the text, as in that famous place, 
Ps. xxii. 17, or shall question the true pointing or printing of the 
originall, whither will not this wild argument run away with you, 
until you come to find the very original written by the prophets 
own hand or by the hand of some amanuensis infallibly directed 
and guided ; The Scriptures exprest in English are the Word 
of God. The deficiency of exact translation of this or that par- 
ticular word doth not invalidate the ca?ion or bodie of the Scrip- 
tures." * 

" Now, what shall a poor unlearned Christian do, if he hath 
nothing to rest his poore soul on ? The originals he understands 
not ; if he did, the first copies are not to be had ; he cannot tell 
whether the Hebrew or Greek copies be the right Hebrew or the 
right Greek, or that which is said to be the meaning of the 
Hebrew or Greek, but as men tell us, who are not prophets and 
may mistake. Besides, the transcribers were men and might 
err. These considerations let in Atheisme like a flood." t 

" The Scriptures in themselves are a Lanthorn rather than a 
Light ; they shine, indeed, but it is alieno lumine ; it is not their 
own, but a borrowed light. It is God which is the true light 
that shines to us in the Scriptures ; and they have no other light 
in them, but as they represent to us somewhat of God, and as 
they exhibit and hold forth God to us, who is the true light that 
1 enlighteneth every man that comes into the world.' It is a light, 
then, as it represents God unto us, who is the original light. It 
transmits some rays ; some beams of the divine nature ; but they 
are refracted, or else we should not be able to behold them. 
They lose much of their original lustre by passing through this 
medium, and appear not so glorious to us as they are in them- 
selves. They represent God's simplicity obliquated and refracted, 
by reason of many inadequate conceptions ; God condescend- 



* Richard Vines, " Common's Sermon, March 10, 1646," p. 68. 
t Rich. Capel, " Remains," London, 1658. 



68 SHIFTING. 

ing to the weakness of our capacity to speak to us in our own 
dialect."* 

" The testimonie of the Spirit doth not teach or assure us of 
the Letters, syllables, or severall words of holy Scripture, which 
are onely as a vessell, to carry and convey that heavenly light 
unto us, but it doth seale in our hearts the saving truth con- 
tained in those sacred writings into what language soever they 
be translated." t 

INERRANCY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

It is claimed by President Patton that inerrancy 
of Scripture is essential to the inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures,^: and Doctors Hodge and Warfield go so far as 
to say that " a proved error in Scripture contradicts 
not only our doctrine, but the Scripture's claims, and 
therefore its inspiration in making those claims." § 

It is admitted that there are errors in the present text 
of Scripture, but it is claimed that there could have 
been no errors in the original documents. But how do 
we know this ? We have not the originals and can never 
get at them. Biblical criticism brings us closer to the 
originals, but does not remove the errors. It is in ac- 
cordance with sound logic and scientific methods to form 
our conception of the original documents from the best 
documents that we have. The presumption, therefore, 
in regard to errors in the best texts, is that they were also 
in the original documents. It is sheer assumption to claim 
that the original documents were inerrant. No one can 
be persuaded to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, 



*John Wallis, "Sermons," Lond., 1791, pp. 127-8. 

t John Ball's "Short Treatise, contayning all the Principall Grounds of 
Christian Religion," pp. 30-3T. Eleventh Impression, London, 1637. 

X Presbyterian Review, vol. iv., p. 363. 

§ Presbyterian Review, vol. ii., p. 245. 



WHITHER? (39 

except by a priori considerations from the elaboration of 
the doctrine of verbal inspiration. 

It is conceded that many of the ablest and choicest 
spirits of modern times, such as Van Oosterzee, Tholuck, 
Neander, Stier, Lange, and Dorner, admit " errors and 
inaccuracies in matters of subordinate importance." * 
Indeed theological scholarship in Europe is overwhelm- 
ingly on the side of these distinguished divines. And 
yet, Doctors Hodge and Warfield do not hesitate to say : 

" Nevertheless, the historical faith of the Church has always 
been, that all the affirmations of Scripture of all kinds, whether 
of spiritual doctrine or duty, or of physical or historical fact, 
or of psychological or philosophical principle are without any 
error, when the ipsissima verba of the original autographs are 
ascertained and interpreted in their natural and intended sense." t 

This statement of these recent divines is contrary to 
the facts of the case, for — (i). The historic faith of the 
Church is to be found in the official symbolical books and 
nowhere else. None of these symbols state that the 
" ipsissima verba of the original autographs are without 
error." 

(2). It is well known that the great Reformers recog- 
nized errors in the Scriptures and did not hold to the 
inerrancy of the original autographs.^ Are these Prince- 
ton divines entitled to pronounce Luther and Calvin 
heterodox, and to define the faith of the universal 
Church ? 

(3). The Westminster divines did not teach the iner- 
rancy of the original autographs. 



* Presbyterian Review, vol. ii., p. 244. 
t Presbyterian Review, vol. ii., p. 238. 
X See Briggs' " Biblical Study,'' p. 141. 



70 SHIFTING. 

The saintly Rutherford thus expresses their views : 

" Now, if we have no better warrant, that the books of the Old 
and New Testament, that we now have, to wit, the originall of 
Hebrew and Greek and translations are the word of God, then 
that which is made of the credit of the authority and learning of 
men, then must all our comfort of beleeving be grounded upon 
this man's, and this man's Grammar and skill, in Hebrew, Greek, 
Latine, English, and he is not infallible in any of these. And 
must our lively hope be bottomed on men's credit and learning ? 
Then for anything we know on the contrary, we have but dreams, 
opinions, and at best, man's word, for the word of God, and 
how is the word of Prophesie a more sure word ; for these were 
written and translated prophesies, of which Peter speaketh ; 
Mr. Goodwin and Libertines, who put heaven and Christ, and the 
lively hope of our inheritance, to the conjectures of doubting 
Scepticks could well reply to Peter, the word of prophesie cannot 
be sure ; for we have no certainty that the Scriptures of the 
Prophets, of the Old and New Testa7nent, which we have either 
Hebrew or Greek copies of, are the word of God, but undoubtedly 
Christ appealeth to the Scriptures as to the onely Judge of that 
controversie, between him and the Jewes, whether the Son of Mary 
was the eternall Son of God, and the Saviour of the world, he sup- 
posed the written Scriptures which came through the hands of 
fallible Printers and Translatours, and were copies at the second, 
if not at the twentieth hand from the first copy of Moses and the 
Prophets, and so were written by sinfull men, who might have mis- 
written and corrupted the Scripture, yet to be a judge and a rule 
of faith, and fit to determine that controversie and all others, and 
a Judge de facto, and actually preserved by a divine hand from 
errours, mistakes and corruptions, else Christ might, in that, ap- 
pealed to a lying Judge, and a corrupt and uncertaine witnesse ; 
and though there be errours of number, genealogies, etc., of 
writing in the Scripture, as written or printed, yet we hold 
providence watcheth so over it, that in the body of articles of 
faith, and necessary truths, we are certaine with the certainty of 
faith, it is that same very word of God, having the same speciall 
operations of enlightning the eyes, converting the soule, 7naking 
wise the simple, as being lively, sharper than a two-edged sword, 
full of divinity, life, majesty, power, simplicity, wisdome, cer- 



WHITHER? 71 

tainty, etc., which the Prophets of old, and the writings of the 
Evangelists, and Apostles had."* 

Richard Baxter was the leading Presbyterian of his 
time. He knew what he was about in his warning: 

"And here I must tell you a great and needful truth, which 
.... Christians fearing to confess, by overdoing tempt men to 
Infidelity. The Scripture is like a man's body, where some parts 
are but for the preservation of the rest, and may be maimed with- 
out death : The sense is the soul of the Scripture ; and the let- 
ters but the body, or vehicle. The doctrine of the Creed, Lord's 
Prayer, and Decalogue, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, is the 
vital part, and Christianity itself. The Old Testament letter 
(written as we have it about Ezra's time) is that vehicle which 
is as imperfect as the Revelation of these times was: But as 
after Christ's incarnation and ascension, the Spirit was more 
abundantly given, and the Revelation more perfect and sealed, 
so the doctrine is more full and the vehicle or body, that is, the 
words are less imperfect and more sure to us ; so that he that 
doubteth of the truth of some words in the Old Testament, or of 
some circumstances in the New, hath no reason therefore to 
doubt of the Christian religion, of which these writings are but 
the vehicle or body, sufficient to ascertain us of the truth of the 
History and Doctrine." t 

The modern Presbyterian Church will hesitate a long 
time before they rule out Baxter and Rutherford from 
orthodoxy in the interests of a new theory of the iner- 
rancy of Scripture. 

The doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture not only 
comes into conflict with the historical faith of the 
Church, but it is also in conflict with Biblical criticism. 
We shall not attempt to array the line of supposed 
errors in the Scriptures over against the theory of the 



* Samuel Rutherford, " A Free Disputation against pretended Liberty of 
Conscience," London, 1649, PP- 3 D 5~6- 
+ " The Catechising of Families," 1683, p. 36. 



72 SHIFTING. 

inerrancy of the Scripture. These dogmaticians give 
up their case if we can show a single error. It seems to 
me that no candid mind without invincible dogmatic 
prepossessions, can doubt that there is an error of cita- 
tion in Matt, xxvii. 9, that goes back to the original 
autograph. A passage is cited from Jeremiah that be- 
longs in Zechariah. Dr. Warfield tries hard to overcome 
this error by three " plausible " theories.* They may 
seem plausible to Dr. Warfield, the advocate, but I doubt 
whether any one will be convinced by any of the three, 
who is not over-anxious to be convinced. One good 
reason would vastly outweigh these three poor ones. 
As I have said elsewhere, it seems to me that it is vain 
to deny that there are errors and inconsistencies in the 
best texts of our Bible. There are chronological, 
geographical, and other circumstantial inconsistencies 
and errors which we should not hesitate to acknowledge. 
But such errors of inadvertence in minor details where 
the author's position and character are well known do 
not destroy his credibility as a witness in any literature 
or in any court of justice. It is not to be presumed that 
divine inspiration lifted the author above his age any 
more than was necessary to convey the divine revelation 
and the divine instruction with infallible certainty to 
mankind. The question of credibility is to be distin- 
guished from infallibility. The form is credible, the 
substance alone is infallible. f 

But whatever interpretation we may give to these 
errors, however much we may reduce them in number, 
the awkward fact stares us in the face, that these Prince- 
ton divines risk the inspiration and authority of the 
Bible upon a single proved error. Such a position is a 



* Presbyterian Review, p. 259. f Briggs' " Biblical Study," p. 240. 



WHITHER? 73 

serious and hazardous departure from Protestant ortho- 
doxy. It imperils the faith of all Christians who have 
been taught this doctrine. They cannot escape the evi- 
dence of errors in the Scriptures. This evidence will be 
thrust upon them whether they will or not. They must 
either shut their eyes or give up their doctrine of inspira- 
tion. If they have no better doctrine to put in its place 
their faith in the Bible will be destroyed. What an 
awful doctrine to teach in our days when Biblical criti- 
cism has the field ! What a peril to precious souls there 
is in the terse, pointed sentence, " A proved error in 
Scripture contradicts not only our doctrine but the 
Scripture claims, and therefore its inspiration in making 
those claims " ! No more dangerous doctrine has ever 
come from the pen of men. It has cost the Church the 
loss of thousands. It will cost us ten thousand and 
hundreds of thousands unless the true Westminster doc- 
trine is speedily put in its place. This false doctrine cir« 
culates in a tract bearing the imprint of the Presbyterian 
Board of Publication, among our ministers and people, 
poisoning their souls and misleading them into danger- 
ous error. This is one of the reasons of the outcry 
against Biblical criticism. Biblical criticism certainly 
destroys " our doctrine," but it does not destroy the 
" Scripture claims." Biblical criticism enters into irre- 
pressible conflict with this modern doctrine, but it rescues 
the Westminster and Reformation doctrine of the Scrip- 
ture, and saves the faith of the Church in the Word of 
God. 

THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

The Roman Catholic Church builds the authority of 
the Scriptures upon the authority of the Church. This 
results in making the Church of Rome the supreme and 



f_j. SHIFTING. 

infallible guide of men. The Protestant Reformation 
recognized the sacred Scriptures themselves as the sole 
authority over the consciences and life of men. This 
Protestant doctrine is set forth in all the symbols of the 
Reformation except the XXXIX Articles, which took 
an intermediate position, and based the authority of the 
canon on the testimony of the ancient Church. 
We shall cite a few of the Reformed confessions : 

" We believe and confess the canonical Scriptures of the holy 
prophets to be the very true Word of God and to have sufficient 
authority of themselves, not of men." 

" Therefore, in controversies of religion or matters of faith we 
cannot admit any other judge than God Himself, pronouncing 
by the holy Scriptures what is true and what is false ; what is to 
be followed, or what is to be avoided." * 

" We know these books to be canonical, and the sure rule of 
our faith, not so much by the common accord and consent of the 
Church, as by the testimony and inward persuasion of the Holy 
Spirit, which enables us to distinguish them from other ecclesi- 
astical books."! 

" The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to 
be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of 
any man or church, but wholly upon God, (who is truth itself,) 
the author thereof ; and therefore it is to be received, because 
it is the word of God." 

" We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the 
church to an high and reverent esteem for the Holy Scripture ; 
and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, 
the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of 
the whole, (which is to give all glory to God,) the full discovery 
it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other in- 
comparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are 
arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the 
word of God ; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and as- 
surance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is 



* " 2d Helvetic Confession," i. and ii. 

t " Gallican Confession," iv. See also the " Belgian Confession," v. 



WHITHER ? 75 

from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and 
with the word in our hearts." * 

The Westminster Confession here carefully states the 
several kinds of evidence for the divine authority of the 
Holy Scripture. The authority of the Church cannot 
give us any more than " a high and reverent esteem for 
the Holy Scripture." The authority of the Church leads 
us to follow its probable testimony in the search for 
better evidence. The internal evidences of the " ex- 
cellencies and entire perfection thereof " now present 
themselves, and under the influence of these features of 
the Holy Scripture we feel that these are " arguments 
whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the 
Word of God." But even the powerful weight of in- 
ternal evidence does not give assurance and certainty, 
for " our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible 
truth, and divine authority thereof" comes only from 
"the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by 
and with the word in our hearts." In accordance with 
this " the authority of the Holy Scripture dependeth 
wholly upon God." On this principle the canon is de- 
termined. The books of the canon are named, and then 
it is said, " All which are given by inspiration of God to 
be the rule of faith and life." The apocryphal books 
are no part of the canon of Scripture, because they are 
not of divine inspiration. It is, therefore, the authority 
of God Himself, speaking through the Holy Spirit, by 
and with the Word to the heart, that determines that the 
writings are infallible as the inspired word of God ; and 
it is their inspiration that determines their canonicity.f 



* " Westminster Confession," i. 4-5. 

t Cf. Briggs' " Biblical Study," pp. 116 seg. 



76 SHIFTING. 

John Calvin expressed the views of the Reformers 
when he said : 

" But there has very generally prevailed a most pernicious 
error that the Scriptures have only so much weight as is con- 
ceded to them by the suffrages of the Church, as though the 
eternal and inviolable truth of God depended on the arbitrary 
will of men." . . . . " For, as God alone is a sufficient witness of 
Himself in His own Word, so also the Word will never gain 
credit in the hearts of men till it be confirmed by the internal 
testimony of the Spirit. It is necessary, therefore, that the same 
Spirit, who spake by the mouths of the prophets, should pene- 
trate into our hearts, to convince us that they faithfully delivered 
the oracles which were divinely intrusted to them." * 

And Charles Herle, the prolocutor (moderator) of the 
Westminster Assembly, explained the Westminster po- 
sition in these words : f 

" They (the Papists) being asked, why they believe the Scrip- 
ture to be the Word of God? Answer, because the Church says 
'tis so ; and being asked againe, why they beleeve the Church ? 
They answer, because the Scripture saies it shall be guided into 
truth; and being asked againe, why they beleeve that very 
Scripture that says so ? They answer, because the Church says 
'tis Scripture, and so (with those in the Psalm xii. 8), they walk 
in a circle or on every side. They charge the like on us (but 
wrongfully) that we beleeve the Word, because it saves it self 
that it is so ; but we do not so resolve our Faith ; we believe unto 
salvation, not the Word barely, because it witnesses to itself, but 
because the Spirit speaking in it to our consciences witnesses to 
them that it is the Word indeed ; we resolve not our Faith barely 
either into the Word, or Spirit, as its single ultimate principle, 
but into the testimony of the Spirit speaking to our consciences 
in the Word." J 

Dr. Patton does not hesitate to recognize that his 



* Calvin's " Institutes," i. 7. 

t See also p. 70 for Rutherford's testimony. 

X Chas. Herle, " Detur Sapienti," pp. 152-3. Lond., 1655. 



WHITHER/ 77 

own views are a departure from the faith of the Reforma- 
tion, for he says : 

" It does not tend in the slightest degree to reconcile us to 
these opinions to say that the reformers entertained them. It 
would not be strange if in their opposition to the claims of the 
church of Rome, they went to the opposite extreme and were 
in danger of falling into the errors of the mystics."* 

Dr. Patton indeed simply reaffirms the position of 
Dr. Archibald Alexander, the Father of the Princeton 
theology, who says : 

"The high claims of the Romish church, in regard to the au- 
thority of fixing the Canon, have already been disproved." .... 
" By the authority of the church, they understand a power 
lodged in the church of Rome, to determine what books shall 
be received as the word of God ; than which it is scarcely possi- 
ble to conceive of anything more absurd. In avoiding this ex- 
treme, some Protestants have verged towards the opposite, and 
have asserted, that the only, or principal evidence of the canoni- 
cal authority of the sacred Scriptures is, their internal evidence. 
Even some churches went so far as to insert this opinion in their 
public confessions. + Now, it ought not to be doubted that the 
internal evidence of the Scriptures is exceedingly strong; and 
that when the mind of the reader is truly illuminated, it derives 
from this source the most unwavering conviction of their truth 
and divine authority ; but that every sincere Christian should be 
able, in all cases, by this internal light, to distinguish between 
canonical books and such as are not, is surely no very safe or 
reasonable opinion. Suppose that a thousand books of various 
kinds, including the canonical, were placed before any sincere 
Christian, would he be able, without mistake, to select from 
this mass the twenty-seven books of which the New Testament 
is composed, if he had nothing to guide him but the internal 
evidence ? Would every such person be able at once to deter- 
mine, whether the book of Ecclesiastes, or of Ecclesiasticus, be- 
longed to the Canon of the Old Testament, by internal evidence 



* Presbyterian Reviezv, vol. iv., p. 346. 

t See the Confession of the Reformed Gallican Church, quoted on p. 74. 



78 SHIFTING. 

alone ? * It is certain, that the influence of the Holy Spirit is 
necessary to produce a true faith in the word of God ; but to 
make this the only criterion by which to judge of the canonical 
authority of a book is certainly liable to strong objections. The 
tendency of this doctrine is to enthusiasm, and the consequence 
of acting upon it, would be to unsettle, rather than establish, the 
Canon of Holy Scripture." f 

In this passage Dr. Alexander throws himself against 
the Gallican Confession, as he acknowledges, but he 
probably did not realize that he was going against the 
unanimous testimony of the Reformed Confessions, the 
Westminster Standards, and the entire body of conti- 
nental Protestants and British Puritans ; and he certain- 
ly did not apprehend the peril of his departure from the 
fundamental principle of the Reformation. 

Dr. Alexander not only departed from the principle 
of the Reformation, but actually went over into the 
camp of the Roman Catholics, and followed the guid- 
ance of a Jesuit in his doctrine of the Canon of Scrip- 
ture. This is clear from the following extract : 

"As to the proper method of settling the Canon of the New 
Testament, the same course must be pursued as has been done 
in respect to the Old. We must have recourse to authentic 
history, and endeavor to ascertain what books were received as 
genuine by the primitive church and early Fathers. The con- 
temporaries, and immediate successors of the apostles, are the 
most competent witnesses in this case. If, among these, there is 
found to have been a general agreement, as to what books were 
canonical, it will go far to satisfy us respecting the true Canon ; 
for it cannot be supposed, that they could easily be deceived in a 
matter of this sort. A general consent of the early Fathers, and 
of the primitive church, therefore, furnishes conclusive evidence 
on this point, and is that species of evidence which is least liable 



* See p. 149 for Rutherford's reply to this argument, 
t Arch. Alexander, u Canon of the Old and New Testaments," pp. 114-116. 



WHITHER? 79 

to fallacy or abuse. The learned Huet has, therefore, assumed it as 
a maxim, ' That every book is genuine, which was esteemed genuine 
by those who lived nearest to the time when it was writte7i, and by 
the ages following, in a continued series' * The reasonableness of 
this rule will appear more evident, When we consider the great 
esteem with which these books were at first received ; the con- 
stant public reading of them in the churches, and the early ver- 
sion of them into other languages."! 

Dr. Archibald Alexander thus gave himself unreserv- 
edly into the hands of the learned Jesuit without seeing 
the trap into which he had fallen. Those following him 
have all fallen into the same error. They have aban- 
doned the principle of the Scriptures as maintained by 
Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Cartwright, the Reformed 
Confessions, and the Westminster divines, and have tried 
to find the rock of our faith in the shifting sand of hu- 
man tradition. 

The Jesuit might safely pursue this method, for he 
re-enforces it by the infallible authority of the living 
Church, but the Protestant is left to the uncertainties of 
historic tradition. It is true that the Anglican Reforma- 
tion stopped at this half-way house, as they did at others 
in their Reformation of the English Church, when they 
laid down the principle — 

" In the name of Holy Scripture we do understand those 
canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of whose au- 
thority was never any doubt in the Church." .... "All the books 
of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do re- 
ceive and account them for canonical." J 

But the Westminster divines made these significant 
changes in this Article of Faith when they revised it : 



* " Demonstratio Evang." 

t Arch. Alexander, " Canon of the Old and New Testaments," pp. 113, 114. 

% The XXXIX Articles— Art. vi. 



80 SHIFTING. 

" By the name of Holy Scripture we understand all the canon- 
ical Books of the Old and New Testament, which follow : . . . . 
All which books, as they are commonly received, we do receive, 
and acknowledge them to be given by the inspiration of God ; 
and in that regard, to be of most certain credit and highest author- 
ity. * 

The Anglican view of the authority of Scripture is 
consistent with the appeal of the Anglo-Catholics to the 
early Christian Church for authority in matters of church 
government and worship ; but it is entirely inconsistent 
with the Puritan appeal to the Scriptures alone. 

This doctrine of basing the authority of the Scriptures 
on the authority of the early Church commits two faults, 
both of which undermine the faith of the Reformation. 

(a). It comes in conflict with historical criticism. It 
reopens the question of the Apocryphal books of the 
Old Testament, which were acknowledged by the Roman 
Catholic Church in accordance with the predominant 
tradition, but were rejected by the Reformed Churches 
in spite of that tradition. It raises questions in the 
canon of the Old and New Testaments, for it is well 
known that there are books therein that were not unani- 
mously received by the early Church. There are some 
doubtful books. We cannot reach certainty as to the 
canon by historical criticism. We can only at the best 
obtain the result that there is unanimous agreement in 
the early Church as to certain books ; that there were 
some objections to several others ; that still other books 
had many opponents, and that some writings were doubt- 
ful. The sum total of this evidence is at its best, proba- 
bility as to most books and doubt as to others, but cer- 
tainty in no case. 

(b). It builds the faith on human evidence that can 

* The XXXIX Articles, revised— Article vi. 



WIIITIIER? 81 

never claim absolute, unquestioned authority ; or give 
divine infallibility and certainty. Are we, then, to build 
the authority of the divine Word on human authority? 
We do not give unquestioned allegiance to the early 
Church in other matters of faith and practice, why should 
we grant them the last word as to the foundations of 
our faith ? True Protestants, the sons of the Reformers 
and Puritans, will never build their confidence in the 
Word of God except on the rock of divine evidence. 
" Not because men or kirk sayeth it, but because God 
quho can not lie sayeth it." * 

No historical student can possibly accept any book as 
divinely inspired simply because the Church of the first 
three centuries reached that conclusion. If these dog- 
maticians build on such evidence for canonicity, they 
put their students, and the people who follow them, in 
grave peril, so soon as they are confronted with the 
troublesome questions of historical criticism. The Re- 
formers and the Westminster divines could not commit 
such folly. No wiles of Jesuits could mislead them, they 
built on the jides divina — the divine evidence of the tes- 
timony of the Spirit — and those who do not build with 
them abandon the rock of the Reformation. 

AUTHENTICITY AND CANONICITY. 

The elder and the younger Hodge depart still further 
than their teacher, Dr. Alexander, from the Westminster 
position, by mixing inspiration and canonicity with ques- 
tions of authenticity. The Higher or Literary Criticism 
of the Scriptures has to determine questions of authen- 
ticity ; that is, whether a writing is anonymous, pseu- 
donymous, or bears the name of its author ; whether 



* Rutherford's Catechism, i. 6. 



82 SHIFTING. 

the traditional theories as to authorship are correct or 
not. The Reformers and the Westminster divines did not 
determine these questions of the Higher Criticism for 
us. In none of the Catechisms or Confessions do we 
find deliverances on these questions. In none of them 
are the questions of inspiration and canonicity mingled 
with authenticity. 

It is well known that the divines of the sixteenth 
century were free in their expression of differences on 
these matters of human authorship. The Westminster 
Confession excludes human authorship from the inspira- 
tion and divine authority of the Scriptures, when it 
states : 

" The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to 
he believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of 
any man."* 

Dr. Charles Hodge takes the following position : . 

" Before entering on the consideration of these points, it is 
necessary to answer the question, What books are entitled to a 
place in the canon, or rule of faith and practice ? Romanists 
answer this question by saying, that all those which the Church 
has decided to be divine in their origin, and none others, are to 
be thus received. Protestants answer it by saying, so far as the 
Old Testament is concerned, that those books, and those only, 
which Christ and His Apostles recognized as the written Word 
of God, are entitled to be regarded as canonical All, there- 
fore, that is necessary to determine for Christians the canon of 
the Old Testament, is to ascertain what books were included in 
the ' Scriptures ' recognized by the Jews of that period. This is 
a point about which there is no reasonable doubt. The Jewish 
canon of the Old Testament included all the books and no others, 
which Protestants now recognize as constituting the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures. On this ground Protestants reject the so-called 
apocryphal books. They were not written in Hebrew and were 

*I.,4- 



WHITHER ? 8 



3 



not included in the canon of the Jews. They were, therefore, 
not recognized by Christ as the Word of God. This reason is 
of itself sufficient. It is however confirmed by considerations 
drawn from the character of the books themselves. They abound 
in errors, and in statements contrary to those found in the un- 
doubtedly canonical books. The principle on which the canon 
of the New Testament is determined is equally simple. Those 
books, and those only which can be proved to have been written 
by the Apostles, or to have received their sanction, are to be 
recognized as of divine authority. The reason of this rule is 
obvious. The Apostles were the duly authenticated messengers 
of Christ, of whom He said, ' He that heareth you, heareth me.' "* 

This method of determining the canon of Scripture 
bases its authority on the authority of its human au- 
thors and so comes into conflict with the Higher Criti- 
cism all along the line of the Old and New Testaments. 

(i). Dr. A. A. Hodge says: 

"Christ and his apostles endorse as genuine and authentic the 

canon of Jewish Scriptures as it existed in their time The 

Jewish canon thus endorsed by Christ and his apostles is the 
same as that we now have."t 

Dr. Hodge rests the canonicity of the books of the 
Old Testament upon this question of fact. Biblical 
criticism answers it thus : 

"Jesus gives His authority to the law, the prophets, and the 
psalms (Luke xxiv. 44), which alone were used in the synagogue 
in His times ; but the psalms only of the Hagiographa are men- 
tioned. There are no sufficient reasons for concluding that by 
the psalms Jesus meant all the other books besides law and 

prophets The New Testament carefully abstains from 

using the writings disputed among the Jews. It does not use at 
all Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah ; and only 



* " Systematic Theology," vol. i., pp. 152-3. 

t " Commentary on the Confession of Faith," p. 52. 



g4 SHIFTING. 

incidentally Ezekiel and Chronicles, in the same way as apocry- 
phal books and pseudepigraphical are used." * 

Dr. Hodge's principle for determining the canon of 
the Old Testament would rule out several important 
writings. 

(2). Dr. A. A. Hodge states 

" We determine what books have a place in this canon or divine 
rule by an examination of the evidences which show that each 
of them, severally, was written by the inspired prophet or apos- 
tle whose name it bears, or, as in the case of the gospels of Mark 
and Luke, written under the superintendence and published by 
the authority of an apostle. This evidence in the case of the 
sacred Scriptures is of the same kind of historical and critical 
proof as is relied upon by all literary men to establish the genu- 
ineness and authenticity of any other ancient writings, such as 
the Odes of Horace or the works of Herodotus. In general this 
evidence is (a) Internal, — such as language, style and the charac- 
ter of the matter they contain ; (b) External, — such as the testi- 
mony of contemporaneous writers, the universal consent of con- 
temporary readers, and corroborating history drawn from inde- 
pendent credible sources." t 

The inspiration, the canonicity, and the authority of 
the Bible depends, therefore, upon the results of the 
Higher Criticism. We are obliged, first, to prove that 
a writing was composed by an " inspired prophet or 
apostle whose name it bears, or, as in the case of the 
gospels of Mark and Luke, written under the superin- 
tendence and published by the authority of an apostle." 
But we cannot prove this for all the writings of the 
canon. 

(a). It is probable that the gospel of Mark was written 
under the influence of Peter, and the gospel of Luke un- 






* Briggs' " Biblical Study," pp. 131, 132. 

t •' Commentary on the Confession of Faith," pp. 51-2. 



WHITHER? 85 

der the influence of Paul, but there is no evidence that 
the apostles superintended the writing and publication 
of these gospels, and it is not certain that they had very 
much to do with them. Are we to reject these gospels 
because there is uncertainty as to apostolic superintend- 
ence and influence? 

(b). The consensus of criticism is against the Pauline 
authorship of the epistle to the Hebrews. There is no 
probability that Paul or any other apostle had anything 
to do with it. Does this destroy its canonicity? 

(c). It is not certain that Matthew wrote the present 
gospel of Matthew. A large number of the best evan- 
gelical critics hold that the real Matthew was the Ara- 
maic Logia at the basis of the gospel, and that our pres- 
ent Matthew is made up chiefly by the use of the origi- 
nal Matthew and the gospel of Mark by a later evangel- 
ist. Does the canonicity of Matthew depend on this 
question? 

(d). The gospel of John, after a long and severe con- 
test, is generally acknowledged by critics to be from the 
hand of the apostle. It is most probable that the apos- 
tle John wrote it, but this is not certain. Is a Christian 
scholar to be compelled to deny its canonicity if he 
doubts whether John really wrote it? 

(e). Is the inspiration and authority of the Pentateuch 
dependent upon the results of the Higher Criticism ? The 
consensus of criticism is that it is an anonymous writing 
made up of four principal earlier histories, which have 
been compacted together, and that the Mosaic material 
is confined to the original sources and the essential 
features of the legislation. Evangelical critics are not 
forced to deny the inspiration of the Pentateuch because 
they are convinced that Moses did not write it in its 
present form. 



g(5 SHIFTING. 

(/). It is certain that a large proportion of the Old 
Testament is anonymous, — from unknown authors. Is 
it safe to hold a theory that leaves no room for an 
anonymous writing in the canon of Scripture? 

(g). It is agreed by most critics that Ecclesiastes is a 
pseudonyme. It is held by many that Daniel and Deu- 
teronomy are also pseudonymes. Must these writings 
go out of the canon on that account ? 

(h). There are many strong reasons against the au- 
thorship of the apocalypse by John the apostle, and the 
Pauline authorship of the pastoral epistles. There are 
many stronger reasons, in my opinion, in favor of the 
prevalent traditional theories. But the canonicity of 
these writings does not depend upon their apostolic au- 
thorship. 

It is evident, if the elder and younger Hodge are cor- 
rect in their theory of inspiration, that a very large 
portion of the Bible is in peril from the Higher Criticism, 
and that the only way to save the Bible is to destroy the 
" higher critics." Doubtless many excellent scholars and 
pious men in the Protestant churches really have this 
opinion ; and that is one of the gravest perils of the pres- 
ent situation. These dogmaticians are responsible for 
this state of things by the error they have made in mak- 
ing inspiration and canonicity dependent upon authen- 
ticity. By persisting in this error they make it neces- 
sary that critics should destroy it, for " the Scriptures 
are sufficiently proved to be God's word by their being 
wholly to God's glory, and their perfection, and power 
upon consciences." * 

We regret to see Dr. Warfield following in the same 
path of error, for he has recently said : 



* Herbert Palmer's Catechism, Quest 31. 






WHITHER? 37 

" We rest our acceptance of the New Testament Scriptures as 
authoritative thus, not on the fact that they are the product of 
the revelation-age of the church, for so are many other books 
which we do not thus accept ; but on the fact that God's author- 
itative agents in founding the church gave them as authoritative 
to the church which they founded. This mode of presentation 
excludes the common objection that not all the New Testament 
books were written by apostles, the point being not apostolic ■ 
composition, but apostolic gift ; and it pulls up by the roots the 
even commoner objection that the church existed before the 
New Testament, the point being rather whether the church ex- 
isted before the authority of the apostles which they have em- 
bodied in the New Testament. By this line of remark it is also 
clear that prophetic and apostolic origin is the very essence of 
the authority of the Scriptures." * 

But how does Dr. Warfield know that the epistle to the 
Hebrews, and the gospels of Mark and Luke had " apos- 
tolic origin " and " apostolic gift " ? He cannot prove it. 
He cannot make it so certain that a reasonable man is 
bound to accept it on peril of his faith. If this is the 
"very essence of the authority of the Scripture," that 
essence is not strong enough to sustain the strain of criti- 
cism, and to bear the weight of a world demanding infal- 
lible evidence for its faith. Dr. Warfield knows well that 
many of the best evangelical critics do not agree with 
him in his traditional views of the literary origin of the 
New Testament ; and yet he does not hesitate to risk 
the authority of the Scriptures upon the soundness of 
these traditional theories. 

The Reformers found the essence of the authority of 
the Scriptures in the Scriptures themselves and not in 
traditional theories about them. Hence they were not 
anxious about human authorship. Luther denied the 
Apocalypse to John and Ecclesiastes to Solomon. He 



* Presbyterian Review \ vol. x., p. 506. 



88 SHIFTING. 

regarded Jude as an extract from Second Peter. He 
said : " What matters it if Moses should not himself 
have written the Pentateuch?" He thought that the 
epistle to the Hebrews was written by a disciple of the 
apostle Paul, who was a learned man, and made the 
epistle as a sort of composite piece in which there are 
some things hard to be reconciled with the gospel. 
Calvin denied the Pauline authorship of the epistle to 
the Hebrews, and doubted the Petrine authorship of 
Second Peter. He held that Ezra or some one else 
edited the Psalter. He regarded Malachi as a pseudonym 
for Ezra. The great Reformers found no difficulty in 
recognizing anonymous and pseudonymous writings in 
the canon of Scripture.* 

But recent teachers of theology are doubtless better 
informed, and are more reliable as exponents and de- 
fenders of the faith. So many think ; but most Presby- 
terians and Protestants will prefer to adhere to the 
broad, catholic and scientific principles of the Reformers 
and the Great Reformation. They think that the West- 
minster divines were wiser in their definitions of inspi- 
ration and canonicity than the founders and chiefs of a 
school of theology that is less than a century old. They 
see that the faith of the Church as defined by its heroic 
leaders and founders, as set forth in its official symbols, 
has no cruarrel with the Higher Criticism. They have 
long since discerned that those who are crying out 
against the Higher Criticism are really exposing the 
perils of the Traditional theology, which is threatened 
with destruction by the Higher Criticism ; and that they 
are showing to the world how seriously the scholastic 
divines have compromised the faith of the Reformation 



* Briggs' " Biblical Study," pp. 165 seg. 



WHITHER? 89 

and the doctrine of the Westminster symbols. I have 
elsewhere said : The question as to the authenticity of 
the Bible is whether God is its author: whether it is in- 
spired. This cannot be determined by the Higher Crit- 
icism in any way, for the Higher Criticism has only to do 
with human authorship, and has nothing to do with the 
divine authorship, which is determined on different prin- 
ciples.* " Who is the author of those Scriptures? " asks 
William Gouge, one of the leading Westminster divines, 
in his Catechism. He answers it thus: " The Holy 
Spirit of God, who inspired holy men to write them." 
Dr. A. F. Mitchell well says: 

" If any chapter in the Confession was more carefully framed 
than another, it was this, ' of the Holy Scripture.' It formed the 
subject of repeated and earnest debate in the House of Com- 
mons as well as in the Assembly; and I think it requires only 
to be fairly examined to make it appear that its framers were so 
far from desiring to go beyond their predecessors in rigour, that 
they were at more special pains than the authors of any other 
Confession — i. To avoid mixing up the question of the canon- 
icity of particular books with the question of their authorship, 
where any doubt at all existed on the latter point ; 2. To leave 
open all reasonable questions as to the mode and degree of in- 
spiration which could consistently be left open by those who 
accepted the Scriptures as the infallible rule of faith and duty ; 3. 
To refrain from claiming for the text such absolute purity, and 
for the Hebrew vowel points such antiquity, as was claimed in 
the Swiss For?nula Concordiae, while asserting that the originals 
of Scripture are, after the lapse of ages, still pure and perfect for 
all those purposes for which they were given ; 4. To declare that 
the sense of Scripture in any particular place is not manifold, 
but one, and so raise an earnest protest against that system of 
spiritualizing the text which had been too much countenanced 
by some of the most eminent of the Fathers, and many of the 
best of the mystics." t 



* " Biblical Study," p. 228. 

t " Minutes of the Westm. Assembly," Introd., p. xlix. 



90 SHIFTING. 

We have taken up in detail the four different depart- 
ures of Modern Orthodoxism from the principle of the 
Scriptures, as defined in the Westminster standards 
and the creeds of the Reformation. We have shown 
how unsound and perilous these departures are in the 
present situation of affairs. If any one wishes to ad- 
vance beyond the official doctrine of the Church, in 
more exact definitions of the doctrine of the Bible, he 
has a right to do so. If he find any comfort in verbal 
inspiration and the inerrancy of the Scriptures, we have 
no desire to disturb him, provided he hold these errors 
as private opinions and do not seek to impose them 
upon others. But fidelity to the truth requires that we 
should state that they are not only extra-confessional, 
but that they are contrary to truth and fact, and that 
they are broken reeds that will surely fail any one who 
leans upon them, and that they are therefore positively 
dangerous to the faith of ministry and people. 

But it is quite different with those who depart so far 
as to base the authority of the Scriptures upon human 
authors and the human recognition of the early Church. 
These are errors that should not be winked at, for they 
are contra-confessional ; they undermine the foundation 
upon which the Confession is constructed. They de- 
stroy the Reformation doctrine of the authority of the 
Scriptures. They change the base of Protestantism. 



CHAPTER V. 

Excesses. 

DOGMATIC THEOLOGY has been busy in building up 
elaborate systems of doctrine by speculation. Specu- 
lation is legitimate so far as it is careful in its lines of 
development and true in its aims. There can be no 
progress in theology without speculation. Every ad- 
vance in theology in the past has been through specu- 
lation. As Martensen wrote to Dorner in 1868 : " Chris- 
tian speculative theology is the only one that really has 

a future The present movement in theology is 

no period in theology, but only a transient episode." * 
But speculation is liable to error and abuse. There 
are abundant evidences of such error and abuse when 
we compare the statements of the dogmatic divines 
with the Westminster Confession. And the abuse is 
all the greater in those theologians who use specu- 
lation in their interpretations of Scripture and the creeds, 
and then pretend that they are Biblical and confessional. 

We shall divide the Westminster Confession into three 
parts, using it as a provisional test of orthodoxy, and a 
measure to determine the departures in different direc- 
tions from the Reformed faith. Each part has eleven 
chapters. The Traditional orthodoxy has been chiefly 
engaged in the elaboration of the first eleven chapters. 

* " Briefwechsel zwischen, H. L. Martensen und I. A. Dorner," ii. p. 67, 
Berlin, 1888. 

(91) 



92 EXCESSES. 

Here is the field of excessive definition, unbounded 
speculation and contest. We have already considered 
the first chapter and its doctrine of the Holy Scripture, 
and have seen that dogmatic divines have gone so far in 
this doctrine as to change the base of the Reformation. 
We shall now consider the remaining ten chapters. 
These chapters treat : 

II. Of God, and of the Holy Trinity. 

III. Of God's Eternal Decree. 

IV. Of Creation. 
V. Of Providence. 

VI. Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the punishment thereof. 
VII. Of God's Covenant with Man. 
VIII. Of Christ the Mediator. 
IX. Of Free Will. 
X. Of Effectual Calling. 
XL Of Justification. 

It is noteworthy that the " Systematic Theology " of 
Dr. Charles Hodge devotes 1,592 pages of its three vol- 
umes to a discussion of the matters contained in the 
first eleven chapters of the Confession, leaving 668 pages 
for the remaining twenty-two chapters. Dr. Shedd, in 
his " Dogmatic Theology," gives 1,098 pages to the doc- 
trines of these eleven chapters, and only 202 pages to 
the doctrines of the remaining two-thirds of the Con 
fession. Other works on Dogmatic Theology show 
similar methods and results. Here is the field of excess- 
ive theological speculation, where the private opinions 
of Christian scholars have so elaborated the statements 
of the Westminster symbols that they have put them in 
improper proportions and in a false light, in the minds 
of large numbers of the ministry. We shall also find not 
a few examples in which these divines fail to rise to the 
heights of the Westminster theology. We shall make 
this clear by several examples. 



WHITHER? 93 

THE LIVING GOD. 

The Westminster Confession begins its doctrine of God 
with the statement : " There is but one only living and 
true God."* The doctrine of the living God is fortified 
by references to Scripture. "Ye turned to God from 
idols, to serve the living and true God." f " But the 
Lord is the true God ; he is the living God and an 
everlasting King." \ This doctrine of the living God 
is one of the most prominent features of the Old 
Testament Scriptures. And yet the dogmatic divines 
have ignored it. This is very striking in Dr. A. A. 
Hodge's exposition of this section of the Confession. 
He says : " This affirmation includes two proposi- 
tions : (a.) There is but one God. {&.) This one God 
is an absolute unit, incapable of division." § The doc- 
trine of the living God is passed over altogether. This 
neglect of the doctrine of the living God has resulted 
in making the God of most dogmaticians an abstraction, 
a bundle of attributes, and in external and mechanical 
conceptions of His decrees and their execution. The 
immutability of God has been elaborated at the expense 
of His activity, His sovereignty at the cost of His deity. 
As I have said elsewhere : " There can be little doubt 
that the substitution of ' Lord ' for Jahveh in the transla- 
tion of the Hebrew Scriptures, and in the Jewish Rabbin- 
ical Theology, has been associated with an undue stress 
upon the sovereignty of God. The Old Testament reve- 
lation in its use of Jahveh emphasized rather the ac- 
tivity of the ever living personal God of revelation. 
The doctrine of God needs to be enriched at the present 

* II. i. 1 1 Thess. i. g. % J er - x - IO - 

§ "Commentary on the Confession of Faith," p. 71, Presbyterian Board of 
Publication. 



94 



EXCESSES. 



time by the enthronement of the idea of the living God 
to its supreme place in Biblical theology, and the de- 
thronement of the idea of divine sovereignty from its 
usurped position in dogmatic theology." * The West- 
minster divines state this doctrine in its true funda- 
mental position, but the later dogmaticians have changed 
the Westminster doctrine. Dr. Isaac Dorner rendered 
an inestimable service to the Church in reasserting the 
doctrine of the living God, in his discussion of the 
unchangeableness of God.f But few American divines 
have paid any attention to it. 

THE LOVE OF GOD. 

It is sometimes complained that the Westminster 
Confession does not give sufficient importance to the 
doctrine of the divine Love. If Dr. A. A. Hodge's ex- 
position of the attributes of God be true, this charge 
is just, for he takes the position that the justice of God 
"is not purely optional with him," but that the grace of 
God " is essentially purely optional with God." W T e give 
Dr. Hodge's views in his own words : 

" God is no more able to relax the moral perfection of his 
law, or to remit the penalty as an act of sovereign prerogative, 
than he is able to lie or to deny himself. Therefore he cannot 
forgive sin in any case. The sinner may be forgiven, but the 
sin must be punished, either in the person of the sinner or of his 
substitute. Therefore, the vicarious suffering of the penalty by 
Christ in the stead of his people, was an absolute necessity to 

the end of their salvation Now while the justice of God 

is a constitutional perfection of his nature, lying back of and 
determining his will, and necessitating the punishment of sin 
in every case, and while his benevolence is a like constitutional 



* Presbyterian Review, vol. vi., p. 527. 

+ " Jahrb. fur deutsche Theologie," 1856-7, and also Dorner's "Gesammelte 
Schriften," 1883, pp. 188 seq. 

\ 



WHITHER? 95 

perfection, determining him to seek the happiness and excel- 
lence of his creatures as far as is consistent with the great ends 
to which the creation is destined, it is, on the other hand, self- 
evident that 'grace' is essentially purely optional with God. 
Justice, if it be justice, must be executed. But grace, that it 
may be grace, is a free and purely optional favour, determined 
solely by the free choice of the sovereign." * 

This Dr. Hodge gives forth as Presbyterian doctrine. 
This is Dr. Hodge's private opinion, in which he is sus- 
tained by some dogmaticians, but it is not Presbyterian 
doctrine ; for Presbyterian doctrine is denned by the 
Westminster standards. The Confession states that 
God is "most free." How can He be most free if He 
be the slave of His justice? The Westminster Confes- 
sion does not give the precedence to the divine justice 
among the attributes of God. It does not neglect the 
divine mercy. This is clear from the following state- 
ment, where if anything the divine love is magnified 
above justice : 

" Most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in 
goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin ; 
the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him ; and withal most 
just and terrible in His judgments ; hating all sin, and who will 
by no means clear the guilty." t 

There is no neglect of the divine love here. The 
statement, " most loving," refers to the proof-text, " God 
is love," % and the proof-texts for the rest of the defini- 
tion are the classic passages where the divine mercy is 
magnified. § Here the doctrine of forgiveness of sin is 
set forth in all its grandeur as the outflow of the divine 
love, grace, and mercy. Dr. Hodge says that God " can- 

* A. A. Hodge, " Presbyterian Doctrine," pp. 15, 16, Presbyterian Board of 
Publication. 

t " Westminster Confession," ii. 1. J 1 John iv. 8. 

§ Ex. xxxiv. 6-7 ; and, also, Neh. ix. 32, 33. 



96 EXCESSES. 

not forgive sin in any case." But these Scriptures and 
others teach that it is of God's very nature to forgive 
sin. The younger Hodge here follows the elder Hodge, 
who, in his great work on " Systematic Theology," finds 
little place for " the forgiveness of sin." 

The doctrine of the forgiveness of sin is written all 
over the Scriptures. It is one of the earliest articles of 
the Apostles' Creed. It is retained in the Westminster 
Confession. But it has been banished by these modern 
divines and other dogmaticians from their system. The 
saintly Rutherford shows how far the scholastic divines 
differ from the Westminster orthodoxy : 

" Common sense will say no more followeth, but goodness and 
bounty intrinsecall are essentiall to God, and these attributes are 
essentiall to him, and were from eternity in him, and are his 
good and bountiful nature ; though not either man, angel, or 
anything else had been created, but while he doth actually ex- 
tend his goodnesse ; ergo, this actual extension of goodnesse is 
not essentiall to God, but free. Though Adam apprehended God 
would punish his eating of the forbidden tree ; yet if he appre- 
hended that he should not be God, if he did not punish it, his 
apprehension was erroneous. And this only follows that there is 
an intrinsicall and internall justice in God, naturall and essentiall 
in God, but so that the outgoings of his justice, the egressions 
are most free."* 

" It must be a carnall conception and a new dream, that God by 
necessity of nature, loves himself as clothed with revenging 
justice, or as just, and his glory of revenging justice, but that 
God loves himself as mercifull and ready to forgive, or his own 
glory of pardoning-mercie freely, and by no necessity of na- 
ture."! 

Shakespeare gives a true and accurate representation 
of the Biblical and confessional doctrine of justice and 
mercy which is so lodged in the heart of the Anglo- 
Saxon race that no dogmaticians can ever get it out : 

* Rutherford, " Covenant of Grace," 1655, p. 28. f /• £., p. 28. 



WHITHER? 97 

" The quality of mercy is not strain'd, — 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath : it is twice bless'd, — 
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes : 
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown ; 
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 
The attribute to awe and majesty, 
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. 
But mercy is above the sceptred sway, — 
It is enthroned in the heart of kings, 
It is an attribute to God himself ; 
And earthly power doth then shew likest God's 
When mercy seasons justice." 

THE DIVINE DECREE. 

The most difficult doctrine in the Westminster stand- 
ards is the doctrine of the " divine decree." * There 
can be no doubt that the Westminster divines were 
Calvinists, that they held in the main to the Canons of 
Dort, and that they excluded Arminians and semi- 
Arminians from orthodoxy. The definitions of the 
Westminster standards were made with this end in view. 
They are sharp, hard, polemical, and exclusive; and, at 
the same time, apologetic, defensive, and guarding them- 
selves from objections at every point. I do not know 
where any such careful and admirable definitions can be 
found. At the same time it is my opinion that in this 
respect the Westminster divines went too far in their 
polemics. They sharpened their definitions into swords 
and spears that are as dangerous in the hands of unskill- 
ful Calvinists as they are to their Arminian foes. It is 
not surprising that these definitions have ever been re- 
garded as hard and offensive, and that they have kept 
multitudes from uniting with the Presbyterian Church. 

* Chap. iii. 



98 EXCESSES. 

The present movement for revision at this point has 
many arguments in its favor. Dr. Howard Crosby un- 
doubtedly expresses the views of many Presbyterian 
ministers and laymen when he says : 

" Surely from these Scriptures we can safely say that any 
scheme of theology that makes God partial, resolving to furnish 
his grace only to some of those whom he invites, and wilfully 
excluding others from all participation in it, is an unscriptural 
scheme, whatever may be its philosophical merits." * 

The antithesis to Dr. Crosby we find in Dr. A. A. 
Hodge's exposition of the Confession : 

"That as God has sovereignly destinated certain persons, 
called the elect, through grace to salvation, so he has sover- 
eignly decreed to withhold his grace from the rest ; and that 
this withholding rests upon the unsearchable counsel of his 
own will, and is for the glory of his sovereign power." t 

It ought to be said, however, in defense of the West- 
minster definitions (a) that the decree is not an arbitrary 
decree. The Westminster divines do not make this mis- 
take of modern divines in building on the absolute sov- 
ereignty of God. " God from all eternity did, by the 
most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and 
unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass." J Wis- 
dom and holiness are the qualities of that counsel or 
plan of God out of which the decrees issue. God is a 
sovereign, but He is a most wise one and a most holy 
one. God is absolute in His sovereignty because He is 
God, but His sovereignty is the sovereignty not merely 
of a monarch, but of a Creator, a Father, and, above all, 
of the infinitely holy and loving God. The attribute of 
Love is wrapped up in every decree, and Holiness is at 



* " Responsibility before the Gospel," p. 4. 

t " Commentary on the Confession of Faith," pp. 107-8. J III. 1. 



WHITHER? 99 

the root of every divine act. These qualifications of the 
decree in the Westminster standards are too often over- 
looked. 

(b). God's decrees are not violent and destructive of 
the liberty and moral nature of His creatures. The de- 
crees are qualified by the statement, " Yet so as thereby 
neither is God the author of sin ; nor is violence offered 
to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contin- 
gency of second causes taken away, but rather estab- 
lished." I do not see how it is possible to improve this 
statement. 

But it would have been better for us if the Westmin- 
ster divines had stopped with sections I, 5, 6, 8, and 
that sections 2, 3, 4, 7 had never been framed. I person- 
ally do not object to them, because they are all wrapped 
up in the first section ; they are all qualified by its state- 
ments, and are not to be interpreted as if they stood 
apart. At the same time the history of Presbyterianism 
shows that they have ever been perverted by ultra-Cal- 
vinists as well as by Arminians, and that they have been 
stumbling-blocks in the way of the ignorant. 

(c). Arminian doctrine is excluded by the statement, 
" Although God knows whatsoever may, or can come to 
pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath He not de- 
creed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as 
that which would come to pass upon such conditions." * 
But this does not justify the dogmatic divines in going 
over to the other extreme and stating, " Presbyterians 
hold that God eternally foreknows all events that come 
to pass as certainly future, because he has predeter- 
mined them to be so." f This may be the doctrine of 
some Presbyterian dogmaticians, but it is not the doc- 



* III. 2. t A. A. Hodge, " Presbyterian Doctrine," p. 11. 



100 EXCESSES. 

trine of the Westminster symbols. The foreknowledge 
of God and the decree of God are not to be ranged either 
in chronological or logical sequence. They are united in 
the " most wise and holy counsel of His own will." As 
Dr. Dabney well says : " God's decree has no succession ; 
and to Him no successive order of parts, because it is a 
contemporaneous unit comprehended altogether by one 
infinite intuition." * 

(e). The ground of the divine election is " His mere 
free grace and love," and it is "all to the praise of His 
glorious grace." An election of love, an election of di- 
vine grace is not an election at which any man should 
stumble. For what more comprehensive plan of re- 
demption could be devised than a redemption that is 
born of the love of God and is carried on in all its pro- 
cesses by divine grace ? For who can limit the love of 
God or measure His infinite grace ? 

Salvation by the divine grace alone is the fundamen- 
tal principle of the Reformed Churches. Those dogma- 
ticians who have substituted the " good pleasure of His 
will," meaning thereby " absolute sovereignty," have 
changed the base of the Reformed doctrine, and have 
gone very far in the direction of committing the well- 
nigh unpardonable sin of limiting the grace of God. It 
is not a Calvinistic doctrine that the great mass of man- 
kind will be reprobated, passed by, and lost in hell for- 
ever. Calvinism, rather, by its emphasis of the wonder- 
ful richness, fulness, and freeness of the divine grace, 
raises our expectations to the point that comparatively 
few will be lost. It is certain that the love of God in- 
finitely surpasses the love of all mankind ; and that 
love so displayed itself in the unspeakable gift of His 



* "Theology," p. 233. 



WHITHER? 101 

only begotten Son for the redemption of the world, that 
the world as a world will be saved, and those ultimately 
lost will be fewer than any one of us can suppose. 

Presbyterianism is not responsible for the abuse of the 
doctrine of election and reprobation. The burden of 
that sin rests on the dogmaticians more than upon the 
Confession. Their limitation of the divine grace to a 
few is not sustained by the Confession or by the Scrip- 
tures. It is rather an inheritance from the mediaeval 
scholasticism, and is based upon the apocalypse of Ezra. 
Dr. Mitchell has called attention to the fact that the 
Westminster divines did not build their statements on 
the Synod of Dort, but on the Irish Articles : 

" But it is remarkable that, though the Assembly met after the 
Synod of Dort, and had for its president one whose opinions on 
these mysterious subjects were almost as pronounced as those of 
Gomarus himself, it fell back not on the decrees of that Synod, 
but on the Articles of the Irish Church, which had been drawn 
up before the Synod of Dort was summoned, or the controversies 
its decrees occasioned had waxed so fierce. The debates \)f the 
Assembly clearly show that its members did not wish to xieter- 
mine several particulars decided by the Synod of Dort, far less 
to determine them more rigidly than it had done. They even 
intentionally left open one point which the Irish divines thought 
fit to determine. They spoke indifferently of the 'decree' and 
of the ' decrees ' of God, while the Irish divines speak of only one 
and ' the same decree '; and from the notes of their debates given 
below, it will be seen that this was done because all were not 
agreed upon the point, and in order that every one might enjoy 
his own sense ! " * 

The debate here referred to is so important that we 
give an extract from it in order to show that the West- 
minster Confession is not so scholastic in its definitions 
as some recent writers have supposed : 



* " Minutes of Westminster Assembly," Dr. Mitchell, Introd., pp. liv.-v. 



102 EXCESSES. 

" Ordered. — Proceed in the debate about permission of man's 
fall ; about ' the same decree.' 

"Mr. Rutherford— 

"Mr. Seaman. — If those words ' in the same decree ' be left 
out, will involve us in a great debate. 

"Mr. Rutherford. — All agree in this, that God decrees the end 

and means, but whether in one or more decrees is not Say 

God also hath decreed It is very probable but one decree, 

but whether fit to express it in a Confession of Faith 

"Mr. Seaman. — 

"Mr. Rutherford. — If there can be any argument to prove a 
necessity of one and the same decree, we should be glad to hear it. 

"Mr. Whitakers. — If you take the same decree in reference to 
time, they are all simul and semel ; in eterno there is not prius 
and posterius. 

"Dr. Gouge. — I do not see how the leaving out of those words 
will cross that we aim at ; I think it will go on roundly without it. 

"Mr. Whitakers. — Our conceptions are very various about the 
decrees, but I know not why we should not say it. 

"Mr. Seaman.— All the odious doctrine of Arminians is from 
their distinguishing of the decrees, but our divines say they are 
one and the same decree. 

"Mr. Gillespie. — When that word is left out, is it not a truth, 
and ?o every one may enjoy his own sense. 

"Mr. Reynolds. — Let not us put in disputes and scholastical 
things into a Confession of Faith ; I think they are different de- 
crees in our manner of conceptions. 

"Mr. Seaman. — You know how great a censure the Remon- 
strants lie under for making two decrees concerning election, and 
will it not be more concerning the end and means? 

"Mr. Calamy.— -That it may be a truth, I think in our Prolocu- 
tor's book he gives a great deal of reason for it; but why should 
we put it in a Confession of Faith ? " * 

Reynolds, as the result of this debate, proposed the 
following statement, which we place in parallelism with 
the Westminster definition, in order to show the final 
result : 



* " Minutes of Westminster Assembly," p. 150. 



WHITHER ? 



103 



MR. REYNOLDS. 



" As God hath appointed the 
elect unto glory, so hath He by 
the same eternal and most free 
purpose of His will foreordain- 
ed all the means thereunto, 
which He in His counsel is 
pleased to appoint for the exe- 
cuting of that decree ; where- 
fore they who are endowed with 
so excellent a benefit, being 
fallen in Adam, are called in 
according to God's purpose." * 



CONFESSION. 



" As God hath appointed the 
elect unto glory, so hath He, by 
the eternal and most free pur- 
pose of His will, foreordained all 
the means thereunto. Where- 
fore they who are elected, being 
fallen in Adam, are redeemed by 
Christ, are effectually called un- 
to faith in Christ, by His Spirit 
working in due season, are jus- 
tified, adopted, sanctified, and 
kept by His power through 
faith unto salvation."! 



The Westminster divines debated long and keenly the 
doctrine of the redemption of the elect only; and the 
final result of that debate, in the definition of the Con- 
fession on reprobation, was such that Calamy, Marshall, 
Vines, Seaman, Arrowsmith, Harris, and many others who 
advocated the doctrine of Davenant and Amyraut, could 
subscribe to them. These held, in the words of Calamy : 

" I am far from universal redemption in the Arminian sense ; 
but that that I hold is in the sense of our divines in the Synod 
of Dort, that Christ did pay a price for all, — absolute intention 
for the elect, conditional intention for the reprobate in case they 
do believe, — that all men should be salvabiles, non obstante lapsn 
Adami, .... that Jesus Christ did not only die sufficiently for 
all, but God did intend, in giving of Christ, and Christ in giving 
Himself, did intend to put all men in a state of salvation in case 
they do believe." j 



* "Minutes of Westminster Assembly," Dr. Mitchell, p. 152. 
+ "Confession of Faith," Chap. III., Sec. vi. 
% " Minutes of Westminster Assembly," p. 152. 



104 EXCESSES. 

A Westminster divine, and a teacher of Systematic 
Theology at Cambridge, makes the following state- 
ment : 

" I desire to have it punctually observed that the vessels of 
wrath are only said to be fitted to destruction, without naming 
by whom, God, Satan, or themselves ; whereas on the other side, 
God himself is expressly said to have prepared his chosen vessels 
of mercy unto glory. Which was purposely done (as I humbly 
conceive) to intimate a remarkable difference between election 
and pretention ; in that election is a proper cause not only of 
salvation itself, but of all the graces which have any causal tend- 
ency thereunto ; and therefore God is said to prepare his elect 
to glory : Whereas negative reprobation is no proper cause, either 
of damnation itself, or of the sin that bringeth it, but an ante- 
cedent only ; wherefore the non-elect are indeed said to be fitted 
to that destruction which their sins in the conclusion bring upon 
them, but not by God. I call it a remarkable difference, because 
where it is once rightly apprehended and truly beleeved, it suf- 
ficeth to stop the mouth of one of those greatest calumnies and 
odiums which are usually cast upon our doctrine of predestina- 
tion, viz., that God made sundry of his creatures on purpose to 
damn them : a thing which the rhetoric of our adversaries is 
wont to blow up to the highest pitch of aggravation. But it is 
soon blown away by such as can tell them, in the words of the 
excellent Dr. Davenant, ' It is true that the elect are severally 
created to the end and intent that they may be glorified, to- 
gether with their head Christ Jesus : But for the non-elect we 
cannot truly say that they are created to the end that they may be 

tormented with the Devil and his Angels No man is created 

by God with a nature and quality fitting him to damnation. Yea 
neither in the state of his innocency, nor in the state of the fall 
and his corruption, doth he receive anything from God which is 
a proper and fit means of bringing him to his damnation.' And 
therefore damnation is not the end of any man's creation."* 



* John Arrowsmith's " Chain of Principles," pp. 335 seq., 1659. 



whither? iQ5 



CREATION. 



The doctrine of creation has greatly changed since 
the Confession was composed. All the profound dis- 
coveries of modern science in geology, astronomy, chem- 
istry, biology, and archaeology, have opened up new 
problems for the doctrine of creation that were not in 
the minds of the Westminster divines. Accordingly 
there are many different views on this subject now ex- 
isting in the Presbyterian Church. 

The doctrine of the Confession is very simple : 

" It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the 
manifestation of the glory of His eternal power, wisdom, and 
goodness, in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing the 
world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the 
space of six days, and all very good." * 

Modern science takes exception to the " six days " 
and " make of nothing " in their connections in this def- 
inition and in their historical interpretation. 

Modern science has made a great change in the atti- 
tude of the Church to these questions. There is no 
longer agreement as to the six days of creation, and 
there are many who deny separate creations out of noth- 
ing. The doctrine of development has the field, and not 
a few Presbyterian ministers have committed themselves 
to it. There are few who believe that the world was 
created in six days of twenty-four hours. The vast 
majority of our ministers — yes, we may say all scholars 
— recognize that the creation of the heavens and the 
earth took long periods of time. 

There is great difference of opinion among Biblical 
scholars whether the six days of the first chapter of 

* IV. i. 



106 EXCESSES. 

Genesis can mean any more than six days of twenty- 
four hours. But even if these six days are six periods 
of time, the first day's work begins with the creation of 
light, and seems to presuppose the primitive chaos which 
must then have been produced before the six days' work 
began. Some put the vast periods of astronomy and 
geology in this introductory time. But the Confession 
leaves no room for this opinion, inasmuch as it states 
that the entire work of creation took place in the six 
days. 

The doctrine of development does not recognize crea- 
tion out of nothing, except so far as the primitive germs 
are concerned, prior to all forms of life and matter men- 
tioned in the Biblical narrative. It is now conceded by 
many Biblical scholars that the Old Testament does not 
teach the doctrine of creation out of nothing, and that 
the Westminster divines misinterpreted the first chapter 
of Genesis when they found that doctrine there. 

Science is not certain in its history of the development 
of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. It is not easy 
to reconcile the present scientific theories with the poem 
of the creation in its order of the creation. It is not 
clear whether development is unbroken from the begin- 
ning, whether there were many stages or crises, or 
whether there was need of creative energy at several dif- 
ferent stages in the development. 

It is impossible at present to hold Presbyterian min- 
isters and professors to the exact statements of this 
Westminster definition. 

The Southern Presbyterian Church has recently 
committed folly in excluding one of its ablest divines 
from his professorship in a theological seminary for 
teaching the doctrine of the development of Adam's 
body out of organic matter, instead of the usual theory 



WHITHER? 107 

of its immediate divine organization out of inorganic 
matter, clay or dust. 

There is no consensus in the Church at present in the 
doctrine of creation. The most that we could agree 
upon would be that God created all things, and that 
ultimately there was creation out of nothing. 

THE DOCTRINE OF MAN. 

The Westminster Standards are not so rich and full 
in their anthropology as in their doctrine of God and their 
doctrine of redemption. A great difference of opinion 
has prevailed in Presbyterian circles in this field, as any 
one can see who will compare the system of theology 
of Dr. Hodge with the system of theology of Dr. Shedd, 
and these with current opinions in the Church. 

There is no agreement as to the original righteous- 
ness in which our first parents lived in paradise. The 
Confession represents that our first parents were " en- 
dued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness," 
but the Larger Catechism describes it as " the estate of 
innocency wherein they were created." 

The Committee of the English Presbyterian Church 
in their new articles of the Faith rightly follow the 
Larger Catechism. Dr. Warfield, in his criticism of 
these Articles, strangely asks : " Is the statement in 
Article V. of man's original state as one ' of innocence ' 
(rather than of a positive righteousness and true holi- 
ness) a further concession to science ? "* 

There has been a great change in psychology since 
the Westminster Standards were written, as well as 
in ethical philosophy. This must be kept in mind by 
any one who would know what were their teachings on 

* Presbyterian Review, vol. x., p. 122. 



108 EXCESSES. 

the doctrine of man. We have to distinguish Biblical 
psychology from the psychology of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, and then recognize that all our thinking at the 
present time is based upon an entirely different psy- 
chology. 

The whole tendency of modern times has been to em- 
phasize the individual man and his actions. The West- 
minster divines had a deeper sense of the solidarity of the 
human race. Hence they did not hesitate to lay stress 
upon original sin as at the basis of all sins of thought, 
word, and deed. They did not have the same difficulty 
as moderns experience with the doctrine that — 

" The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell, consisteth 
in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of that righteousness 
wherein he was created and the corruption of his nature, where- 
by he is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite unto all 
that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all evil, and that 
continually; which is commonly called original sin, and from 
which do proceed all actual transgression."* 

The Westminster divines did not sufficiently appre- 
ciate the ethical development of mankind. They so em- 
phasized sin as against God, and in its infinite guilt as 
against the Creator, and the original act of Adam's sin 
in all its dreadful consequences, that they left little room 
for the doctrine of the development of sin in the indi- 
vidual and the race. It is just here that modern psy- 
chology and ethics have enlarged our field of study, 
and so brought to light many statements of Scripture 
that the Westminster divines overlooked and neglected. 

Many dogmatic divines, by an undue use of the term 
total depravity, have exaggerated the faults of the Stand- 
ards themselves, so that they have no conception of the 



* " Larger Catechism," Question 25. 



WHITHER? 1Q9 

stages of growth of sin in human life and human history ;' 
no space for the ripening of sin for the judgment ; no 
room for distinguishing reprobate men from demons, 
or for degrees of punishment after the judgment of the 
day of doom. The mass of sin and the race of sinners 
are so prominent to the dogmaticians, that they have lit- 
tle or no sense for the variations of sin and guilt, and 
the wonderful diversity of character and acts of sinners. 
It is not so easy as it used to be to think that for any 
act of sin, however small its importance, relatively speak- 
ing, the sinner must suffer in hell-fire forever, unless re- 
deemed by the grace of God. It is a hard doctrine to 
teach that all mankind are doomed to everlasting damna- 
tion for the original sin in which we share with our first 
parents, no matter what the theory of that participation 
may be. 

The Scriptures distinguish between sins that are par- 
donable and those that cannot be forgiven, between 
those that may be covered over by sacrifice and those 
that cannot be covered over by sacrifice, but may be 
forgiven by the grace of God without sacrifice. And 
our Saviour teaches that there is one only unpardonable 
sin ; that the sin against the Holy Spirit is the only one 
that cannot be forgiven, either in this life or the next. 
The Westminster Standards leave this field of the doc- 
trine of sin entirely unworked. Modern German theol- 
ogy has made great progress in this direction, but this 
progress has not been shared in by British and Ameri- 
can dogmaticians. 

HUMAN INABILITY. 

Great conflicts have been waged in former years on 
the freedom of the will, the imputation of sin, and 
human inability. I do not propose to enter into these 



110 EXCESSES. 

i 

questions that divided the old school Calvinists from 

the new school. I call attention to the differences, in 

order to show that the Westminster Standards have not 

determined all these questions for us, and that there are 

still now, as there ever have been, differences among 

Presbyterians on these subjects. It will suffice to quote 

Dr. Dabney on this subject : 

" I have said that the attempts made by Rivet and other later 
divines, to prove that their doctrine of immediate precedaneous 
imputation is that of the Reformed Churches and Symbols, are 
vain. My conviction is that this scheme, like the supralapsarian, 
is a novelty and an over-refinement, alien to the true current of 
the earlier Reformed theology ; and some of Placaeus' day were 
betrayed into the exaggerations by the snare set for them by his 
astuteness and their own over-zeal to expose him." * 

It is of some importance, however, to consider briefly 
the question of human inability, for here the difficulty 
is chiefly felt. Dr. A. A. Hodge teaches that the inabil- 
ity of man to accept Christ and fulfill the law of God is 
(i) absolute, (2) moral, (3) natural.-)- But Henry B. Smith 
says that the 

" Scriptures always conjoin the two truths of natural ability 
and moral inability, and they should be conjoined in all preach- 
ing." . . . . " All the inability he is under is a sinful inability. 
This is an unwillingness, which is not merely an act of the will, 
or a lack of action, but is also a state of the will, constituting a 
real and sufficient obstacle to his actually doing right. He has 
the ability in will as the power of choice, to accept or reject the 
grace offered to him, to obey or disobey the calls, — has the 
efficiency though not the sufficiency." J 

These careful distinctions of Dr. Smith, although not 
made in the Westminster Standards, are not against the 

* " Theology," p. 347. 

t " Commentary on the Confession of Faith," p. 226. 

X " System of Christian Theology," pp. 335-6. 



WHITHER? 



Ill 



Standards. But there are not a few Presbyterians who 
with Dr. Howard Crosby are in direct antithesis to the 
Standards on this question. 



WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 

" Man, by his fall into a state 
of sin, hath wholly lost all abil- 
ity of will to any spiritual good 
accompanying salvation ; so as 
a natural man being altogether 
averse from that good, and dead 
in sin, is not able, by his own 
strength, to convert himself, or 
to prepare himself thereunto. "* 

" All those whom God hath 
predestinated unto life, and 
these only, he is pleased, in his 
appointed and accepted time, 
effectually to call, by his Word 
and Spirit, out of that state of 
sin and death, in which they are 
by nature, to grace and salva- 
tion by Jesus Christ ; enlighten- 
ing their minds, spiritually and 
savingly, to understand the 
things of God, taking away their 
heart of stone, and giving unto 
them an heart of flesh; renewing 
their wills, and by his almighty 
power determining them to that 
which is good ; and effectually 
drawing them to Jesus Christ ; 
yet so as they come most freely, 
being made willing by his 
grace." t 



HOWARD CROSBY. 



" We are thus left to a clear, 
simple, honest gospel. Christ 
calls all to come to him. The 
Father has given his Word and 
Spirit to draw all. If any come 
not, it is simply because they 
will not let the Father draw 
them by his Word and Spirit." { 

" Every man has full ability 
to reject or accept the gospel 
of salvation. God has given no 
more ability to one than an- 
other." .... "The ability to 
exercise this Faith is given to 
all." .... "The salvation is 
altogether of Christ and his 
wonderful grace. Nevertheless 
the faith, the grasp, the accept- 
ance, was the sinner's own (and 
not God's) act, ability to exer- 
cise which is God's gift, and 
given to all." § 



* Chapter ix. 3. 

X " Responsibility before the Gospel," p. 8. 



t Chapter x. 1. 
§ /. c, p. 10. 



112 EXCESSES. 

The Confession teaches that no man has ability of 
will to any spiritual good, except the elect to whom it is 
given by God. Dr. Crosby teaches that all men have 
full ability, and that God has given no more ability to 
one than to another. The Confession teaches that God 
effectually calls by His Word and Spirit those whom 
He has predestinated unto life, and those only; but Dr. 
Crosby teaches that the Father has given His Word and 
Spirit to draw all men. 

THE MEDIATOR. 

One of the best chapters of the Confession is the one 
entitled " Of Christ the Mediator "; and the correspond- 
ing questions in the Larger Catechism are still fuller and 
richer. The Westminster divines grasped the whole sub- 
ject of the Person and Work of Christ, and stated it 
under the head of the " Mediator." Here, as elsewhere, 
the dogmaticians have cramped the Westminster theol- 
ogy. Dr. E. D. Morris, in a recent article, said : 

" In more recent usage the theological term, atonement, 
though not sustained by either confessional or Scriptural war- 
rant, has largely taken the place of the other and more inclusive 
word. Whatever may be the reason for the fact, it is the atone- 
ment wrought by Christ, rather than His mediation comprehen- 
sively considered, which is most discussed and emphasized in 
modern theology."* 

An Irish divine also tells us that : 

" Modern popular theology dwells exclusively upon the atone- 
ment, without taking cognizance of the connection between it 
and the incarnation, which is practically left out of sight. An- 
cient theology dwelt almost though not altogether as exclu- 
sively upon the incarnation. Athanasius goes so far as to say 
the Son became man ' that by the power of his incarnation he 
might make men God ;' again, 'becoming man himself he made 



Presbyterian Review, vol. vii., p. 232. 



WHITHER? 113 

men to be Sons and to be Gods ! ' The disadvantage of the 
former extreme is that it gives the whole plan of salvation 
a dry, legal, arbitrary aspect, which does not recommend itself 
to the conscience, and deprives the atonement of its essential 
character of an inward moral process. One of the disadvantages 
of the patristic extreme is that it tends to connect the Lord's 
generic life with the old humanity into which he entered, rather 
than with the new of which he was the head. He did not sim- 
ply restore the old, but created the new ; there is no change in 
human nature in the abstract ; that which is flesh remains liesh 
in us, and produces in every successive generation the same evil 
fruits. He arrested the stream of corruption in himself, purify- 
ing and transforming our nature : ' human nature was blessed in 
him,' but the change is confined to his sacred person, and to 
those who by faith begin to participate in his life. The new 
order of things and the reign of Redemption properly date from 
the resurrection ; though, since he gave himself to us in becom- 
ing man, and since his life was a moment of transition more 
momentous than any other crisis in history, it was no mistake 
when the Christians of the sixth century made the new era begin 
with his birth."* 

Accordingly the work of redemption has been chiefly 
confined, in modern theology, to the work wrought upon 
the cross ; to the neglect of the doctrines of the incarna- 
tion, the holy life, the descent into hades, the resurrec- 
tion, the enthronement, the reign of Christ, and the 
second advent ; all of which are essential to the work of 
redemption. 

Another recent writer has called attention to the seri- 
ous neglect in modern doctrine of the incarnation and 
its redemptive significance, and has urged reacting 
toward the early theology of the Greek Church as a true 
step in progress.f It was one of the chief merits of the 
late Henry B. Smith, that he overcame this defect and 



* " Religion of Redemption," R. W. Monsell, pp, 121-2. London, 1867. 
t A. V. G. Allen's "The Continuity of Christian Thought," Boston, 1884. 



114 EXCESSES. 

made " incarnation in order to redemption " one of the 
most characteristic features of his system of doctrine. 

The doctrine of the humiliation of Christ has also 
been neglected until quite recent times. Dr. Bruce,* 
following Dr. Dorner and other German divines, has 
built on the Westminster statements, and enriched the 
doctrine, especially in its ethical aspects. 

On the other hand, other Presbyterians have followed 
the Lutheran doctrine of the Kenosis, and advanced into 
dangerous error. Thus Dr. Howard Crosby goes so far 
as to state : 

" The divine nature, as regards its efficiency, was dormant in 
Christ during His humiliation. Its essence was there, for it is 
impossible for Deity to become extinct, but its efficiency was in 
some mysterious way paralyzed in the person of Jesus." t 

" There is not and ought not to be a vestige of Deity in His 
(Christ's) conscious life till after the resurrection." % 

" No action of our Saviour's earthly life from Bethlehem to 
Calvary, exhibits divinity." § 

" A present, active Godhood would have destroyed the babe 
and made a monstrosity." || 

All of these sentences are in conflict with the follow- 
ing Westminster definitions : 

" It was requisite that the Mediator should be God, that he 
might sustain and keep the human nature from sinking under 
the infinite wrath of God, and the power of death ; give worth 
and efficacy to his sufferings, obedience, and intercession ; and 
to satisfy God's justice, procure his favour, purchase a peculiar 
people, give his Spirit to them, conquer all their enemies, and 
bring them to everlasting salvation." IT 

" The estate of Christ's humiliation was that low condition, 
wherein he, for our sakes, emptying himself of his glory, took 



* " Humiliation of Christ." Sixth series of the Cunningham Lectures, 
t " True Humanity of Christ," p. 26. % I. c. % p. 44. 

§ /. c. y p. 23. J /. c, p. 37. % " Larger Catechism," Q. 38. 



WHITHER? 115 

upon him the form of a servant, in his conception and birth, life, 
death, and after his death until his resurrection."* 

These statements teach that Christ emptied Himself of 
His glory in His state of humiliation. Dr. Crosby de- 
clares that Christ emptied Himself of His divinity. The 
Standards teach that the divine nature was active, sus- 
taining the human nature of Christ and giving worth 
and efficacy to His sufferings and obedience. Dr. Crosby 
teaches that the divine nature was inactive and inefficient, 
and as to its efficacy paralyzed. 

In the doctrine of the atonement too much stress has 
been laid upon theories of substitution and satisfaction 
in connection with the death of Christ on the cross, 
using the symbolism of the slaying of the sacrificial vic- 
tim, and the peculiar idea of the guilt or trespass-offer- 
ing of the Old Testament. The significance of the other 
more important ceremonies in connection with the Old 
Testament sacrifices and the meaning of the more an- 
cient and more frequent sacrifices, have been overlooked. 
The symbolism of the Old Testament sacrifices is much 
richer than the dogmatic divines have yet realized. The 
whole burnt-offering has as its antitype the ascension 
of the holy Jesus into the heavens to offer His whole 
body and person a voluntary offering acceptable to God, 
the pledge and surety of the acceptance of the worship 
of His people. The peace-offering has as its antitype, the 
provision that the enthroned Messiah has made for the 
nourishment of His people in communion with Him. 
The special peace-offerings, such as the covenant sacri- 
fice and the passover, lead on to the Lord's Supper, with 
its provision of the flesh and blood of the Messiah as 
the source of life and growth to His people. The sin- 
offering, with its application of blood to the divine altars 

* " Larger Catechism," Q. 46. 



116 



EXCESSES. 



to purge them from the filth of sin, has as its counter- 
part the ascent of our Saviour to heaven to become the 
blood-stained throne of grace. The significance of these 
offerings is not so much in the death of the victim as 
in the use of the flesh and blood of the victim after 
it had been slain. And so modern theology, by limit- 
ing itself to the death of the cross, has not appre- 
hended the most important points in the sacrificial 
system of the Old Testament and in the work of 
our Saviour Himself. We do not worship a dead 
Christ ; we are not redeemed by a buried Redeemer. 
The Lamb of God who taketh away all sin, is a lamb 
that was slain, but has ever since lived and will live 
forever. To the living and enthroned Saviour we look 
for salvation. 

Accordingly the dogmaticians have neglected Christ's 
state of exaltation. One of my colleagues tells me that 
in his youth he never heard a discourse on the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ. How small a proportion of the 
teaching and preaching is upon the reigning Christ and 
the Christ of the Second Advent ! The proportion of 
the Scriptures has been neglected. The proportion of 
the Westminster Standards has been abandoned. Dr. 
Morris presents this very strikingly in the following 
table of Christological topics : 



Van Oosterzee. 

Dorner 

Charles Hodge. 
Henry B.Smith. 



MEDIA- 
TION. 

8 pages. 
10 

7 " 
6 " 



PROPH- 
ECY. 

6 pages. 
4 " 

2 

O " 



PRIEST- 
HOOD. 



34 pages. 
153 " 
130 " 

51 " 



KINGSHIP. 



7 pages. 
27 

13 " 
11 



WHITHER? 117 

This table justifies his excellent though over-cautious 
words : 

" It is also a delicate and yet just query whether, in the strong 
and tender emphasizing of the priestly office so characteristic of 
evangelical Protestantism ever since the Reformation, Christ the 
King and Christ the prophet have not been relatively too much 
retired from both dogma and experience. It is a still more deli- 
cate query whether, as Lutheran writers have sometimes alleged, 
the Reformed theology has not been especially prone to exalt 
the Christus pro nobis, centered particularly in the priesthood, at 
the expense of the Christus in nobis, manifested especially in our 
Divine Teacher and Example, Ruler and Lord."* 

Dr. Morris might have gone further and stated with 
propriety that the larger portion of the material he has 
included under the head of the priesthood of Christ 
really belongs to Christ the victim, the sacrifice, and 
not to Christ the priest ; and this would have shown 
that the doctrine of the heavenly priesthood has also 
been neglected. 

In all these respects the dogmaticians and the minis- 
try have abandoned the proportions of the Standards 
and have neglected their express statements. No one 
can truly say that the following excellent definition is 
followed, in its proportions and in all its sentences, by 
the Presbyterian Church of our day : 

" It pleased God, in his eternal purpose, to choose and ordain 
the Lord Jesus, his only begotten Son, to be the mediator be- 
tween God and man, the prophet, priest, and king ; the head 
and saviour of his Church, the heir of all things, and judge of 
the world ; unto whom he did, from all eternity, give a people 
to be his seed, and to be by him in time redeemed, called, jus- 
tified, sanctified, and glorified." t 



* Presbyterian Review, vol. vii., pp. 243-44. 
+ " Confession of Faith," chap, viii., sec. 1. 



113 EXCESSES. 

EFFECTUAL CALLING. 

The work of Redemption begins, so far as man is con- 
cerned, with effectual calling. Under this head the West- 
minster divines brought all that has been ordinarily- 
treated, since the rise of Methodism, under the head of 
regeneration. It is noteworthy that the Westminster 
divines have no chapter or section upon regeneration 
and seldom use the term. The Scriptures use other 
terms besides regeneration — such as resurrection and 
creation. Regeneration presents the new life from one 
point of view, but does not by any means give a com- 
prehensive statement of the whole subject. Such a 
comprehensive view can be gained only by a synthesis 
of all the terms used in the Scriptures. 

I do not propose to consider all the variations from 
this chapter that now exist in the Church ; I shall limit 
myself to a few. 

In the times of the Westminster Assembly, little was 
known of the heathen world. The divines did not 
stumble over the doctrine of the lost condition of the 
heathen. A few broad-minded men, such as Zwingli, 
indulged in a larger hope, and thought that the grace of 
God might save Socrates and Plato ; but these were ex- 
ceptions, and this view was looked upon with suspicion. 
It is only by the vast extension of commerce in modern 
times, and the opening up of the world to the knowledge 
of the Church, that Christian people have been im- 
pressed with the thought that the vast majority of 
mankind now living are given up to everlasting pun- 
ishment by the Old Theology ; and accordingly, recoil- 
ing from this pit of horror, the Church in general and 
most recent theologians have sought in some way to save 
some of the heathen. 



WHITHER? 11 (j 

The Westminster doctrine of the salvation of infants 
is stated in the Westminster Confession.* " Elect in- 
fants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by 
Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and 
where, and how he pleaseth. So alro are all other elect 
persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by 
the ministry of the word." In this clause the Westmin- 
ster divines recognize that salvation is not confined to 
those who are outwardly called by the ministry of the 
Word. Some who never hear the Gospel of redemption 
in this world are saved by Jesus Christ. Furthermore, 
redemption is not confined to those who have been bap- 
tized. 

" Although it be a great sin to contemn or neglect this 
ordinance, yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably 
annexed unto it, as that no person can be regenerated or 
saved without it, or that all that are baptized are un- 
doubtedly regenerated." f Thus, the Westminster di- 
vines take the position of the Reformed Churches, that 
the divine electing grace is not confined to external 
means ; that the ordinary means of grace are not essen- 
tial to salvation ; and that there are some elect persons 
who are saved without them. 

These persons saved without baptism and the outward 
ministry of the Word are not " infants " and " other per- 
sons," or " all infants " and " all other persons," but 
" elect infants " and " all other elect persons "; and the 
latter not " all other elect persons who have not been out- 
wardly called," but " all other elect persons who are in- 
capable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the 
Word." It seems plain that the adjective " elect " lim- 
its "infants" as it does "all other persons"; and that 



* Chap. x. 3. t Chap, xxviii. 5. 



120 EXCESSES. 

the Westminster Confession teaches that there are some 
elect persons among infants and incapables who cannot 
hear the Gospel, as well as among those who hear the 
Gospel and enjoy the sacraments. That this is the 
meaning of the Confession was not doubted till recent 
times. But in the present century, evangelical opinion 
has settled to the theory that all infants dying in infancy 
are saved; and many Presbyterians endeavor to interpret 
the Confession of Faith to conform with the modern 
theory. There can be no doubt that the Confession 
means by " all other elect persons " incapables — that is, 
those who have not their normal faculties of mind, and 
so, like infants, are "incapable" of hearing the outward 
call of the Gospel and of responding to it. The authors 
of the Confession had no thought of including the 
heathen in this class. Those who seek to find a basis 
for the salvation of elect heathen must look for it else- 
where. For the heathen are not " incapable of being 
outwardly called by the ministry of the Word." They 
are entirely capable of being called, and that is the rea- 
son why we are to preach the Gospel to them. The in- 
capacity here is not in the heathen or in the Saviour and 
His salvation, but in the Church and the ministry of the 
Word. 

It was conceived by the Westminster divines that in- 
capables might have an internal call and be regenerated. 
But no Westminster divines thought of saving the 
heathen in that way. Indeed the next section ex- 
pressly rules them out from salvation : 

" Others, not elected, although they may be called by the min- 
istry of the word, and may have some common operations of the 
Spirit, yet they never truly come to Christ, and therefore cannot 
be saved : much less can men, not professing the Christian re- 
ligion, be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so 



WHITHER? 121 

diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and 
the law of that religion they do profess ; and to assert and main- 
tain that they may is very pernicious, and to be detested."* 

The Larger Catechism puts it still more tersely when 
it says : 

" Q. Can they who have never heard the gospel, and so know 
not Jesus Christ, nor believe in him, be saved by their living ac- 
cording to the light of nature ? 

" Ans. They, who having never heard the gospel, know not 
Jesus Christ, and believe not in him, cannot be saved, be they 
never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of 
nature, or the laws of that religion which they profess ; neither 
is there salvation in any other but in Christ alone, who is the 
Saviour only of his body the church." t 

There is no salvation for those who have not believed 
in Jesus Christ and been justified by faith, according to 
the Westminster Standards. Those who fall back upon 
the freedom and fulness of the grace of God for the 
salvation of some heathen may be correct, but they go 
against the express doctrines of the Standards and assert 
what the Confession regards as very " pernicious and de- 
testable error." 

DAMNATION OF INFANTS. 

The Westminster Confession classes incapables and 
infants together, and teaches that there are elect ones 
among them as well as among others. In recent times 
the Church has stumbled over the doctrine of the damna- 
tion of infants, and the phrase "elect infants" which 
seems to imply that doctrine. It is necessary for us to 
determine its historical meaning. 

*'" Confession of Faith," chap, x., sec. 4. 
t " Larger Catechism," Q. 60. 



122 EXCESSES. 

The original phrase as reported to the Westminster 
Assembly by the third grand committee, November 
13, 1645, was "elect of infants." This committee con- 
sisted of twenty-eight in all, a third of the Assembly. 
Their phrase makes their opinion sufficiently evident. 
We shall give an extract from one of them, Anthony 
Burgess, who lectured against the Antinomians early in 
the year 1646 at the request of the President and Fel- 
lows of Sion College, London. He published his book, 
" Vindiciae Legis," at their request. He was regarded 
as expressing the views of the Presbyterians at this time 
in this controversy. He says : 

" The third Question concerning this naturall light is, Whether 
it be sufficient for salvation ? For, there are some that hold, If 
any man, of whatsoever Nation he be, worship God according to 
the light of Nature, and so serve him, he may be saved. Hence 
they have coined a distinction of a three-fold piety : Judica, 
Christiana, and Ethenica. Therefore say they, What Moses was 
to the Jewes, and Christ to the Christians ; the same is Philos- 
ophy, or the knowledge of God by nature, to Heathens. But this 
opinion is derogatory to the Lord Christ ; for onely by faith in 
his Name can we be saved, as the Scripture speaketh. And, cer- 
tainly, if the Apostle argued that Christ died in vain, if workes 
were joyned to him ; how much more if he be totally excluded ? 
It is true, it seemeth a very hard thing to mans reason, that the 
greater part of the world, being Pagans and Heathens, with all 
their infants, should be excluded from heaven. Hence, because 
Vedelius, a learned man, did make it an aggravation of Gods 
grace to him, to chuse and call him, when so many thousand 
thousands of pagan-infants are damned : this speech, as being 
full of horridnesse, a scoffing Remonstrant takes, and sets it 
forth odiously in the Frontispice of his Book. But, though our 
reason is offended, yet we must judge according to the way of 
the Scripture ; which makes Christ the only way for salvation. If 
so it could be proved, as Zwinglius held, that Christ did com- 
municate himself to some Heathens, then it were another mat- 
ter. I will not bring all the places they stand upon, that which 



WHITHER? 123 

is mainly urged is Act 10. of Cornelius ; his prayers were ac- 
cepted, and, saith Peter, 7iow I perceive, &c. But this proceedeth 
from ameere mistake; For Cornelius had the implicite knowledge 
and faith of Christ and had received the doctrine of the Messias, 
though he was ignorant of Christ, that individuall Person. 

" And as for that worshipping of him in euery Nation, that is 
not to be understood of men abiding so, but whereas before it 
was limited to the Jewes, now God would receive all that should 
come to him, of what Nation soeuer." * 

The minutes of the Westminster Assembly show that 
there was " a debate about elect of infants "; but inas- 
much as there is no report of the debate and no indica- 
tion of points of difference, such as we find in the min- 
utes when important differences were developed, the 
debate was doubtless upon the mode of expression. 
The phrase seems not to have been changed by vote of 
the Assembly, for there is no record of such a vote. It 
was probably changed as a matter of style either by the 
Committee that had charge of " the wording of the 
Confession of Faith," or by Dr. Cornelius Burgess, who 
had charge of the final transcription of the Confession 
before it was taken up to Parliament. 

The Committee on " the wording of the Confession " 
consisted of Edward Reynolds, Charles Herle, Matthew 
Newcommen, John Arrowsmith, and the commissioners 
of the Church of Scotland. We shall give the testimony 
of two of them. 

Robert Baylie, one of the Scottish commissioners, ex- 
cludes the infants of the heathen from the salvation 
enjoyed by the infants of believers in the following terse 
form of catechism : 

" An infantes fidelium habendi sunt tarn vacui sanctitate, tarn 
alieni a benedictionibus Christi et regno coelorum quam infantes 



* " Vindicia2 Legis," 1647, pp. 80, 81. 



124 EXCESSES. 

Turcarum et Paganorum ? Resp. Horrenda haec crudelitas con- 
tradicit Apostolo. I. ad. Cor. vii. 19. Item Christo Marci, xiv. 
16."* 

Samuel Rutherford, another of the Scotch commis- 
sioners, puts the doctrine in a rhetorical form, thus: 

" Suppose wee saw with our eyes, for twenty or thirty yeers to- 
gether, a great furnace of fire, of the quantity of the whole earth, 
& saw there Cam, Judas, Ahitophel, Saul, and all the damned as 
lumps of red fire, and they boyling and louping for pain in a dun- 
geon of everlasting brimstone, and the black and terrible devils 
with long & sharp-tooth'd whips of Scorpions, lashing out 
scourges on them ; and if we saw there our Neighbours, Breth- 
ren, Sisters, yea our dear Children, Wives, Fathers, and Mothers, 
swimming and sinking in that black Lake, and heard the yelling, 
shouting, crying of our yong ones and fathers, blaspheming the 
spotlesse Justice of God ; if wee saw this while we are living here 
on Earth, we should not dare to offend the Majesty of God, but 
should hear, come to Christ, and beleeve and be saved. But the 
truth is, If wee beleeve not Moses and the Prophets, neither should 
wee beleeve for this."t 

We have examined the writings of the other mem- 
bers of the Committee and have failed to find any evi- 
dence that these differed from Baylie, Rutherford, or 
their brethren of the third grand committee on this sub- 
ject. 

Dr. Burgess, through whose hands the Confession 
went in its final transcription, was the author of the book 
entitled " Baptismal Regeneration of Elect Infants," 
Oxford, 1629. There can be no doubt of his use of the 
term " elect infants." It is altogether likely that in the 
final transcription of the Confession, he made the change 
from " elect of infants " to " elect infants " as meaning the 
same thing. He takes the following position in his book : 



■* »< 



Catechesis Elenctica Errorum," London, 1654, p. 36. 
t " Tryal and Triumph of Faith," London, 1645, p. 36. 



WHITHER? 125 

" // is most agreeable to the Institution of Christ, that All Elect 
Infants that are baptized (unlesse in some extraordinary cases) doe, 
ordinarily, receive, from Christ, the Spirit in B apt ism e, for their 
first solemne initiation into Christ, and for their future actuall re- 
novation, in Gods good time, if they live to year es of discretion, and 
enjoy the other ordinary meanes of Grace appointed of God to this 
end."* He also quotes the following extract from Dr. Thomas 
Taylor's " Commentary on Titus " with entire approval : " let 
us first Distinguish of Infants ; of whom some be elected, and 
some belong not to the election of grace. These latter receive 
only the outward element, and are not inwardly washed : The 
Former receive, in the right use of the Sacrament, the Inward 
Grace ; not that hereby we ty the Maiesty of God to any time or 
meanes, whose spirit bloweth when & where he listeth ; on some 
before baptisme, who are sanctified from the womb ; on some 
after : but because the Lord Delighteth to Present Himself e Gra- 
tious in his owne Ordinance ; we may conceive that in the right 
use of this Sacrament, He Ordinarily Accompanieth It With his 
Grace : Here, according to his Promise, we may expect it, and 
Here we May and Ought send out the prayer of Faith for it." t 

It is evident that the change from " elect of infants " 
to " elect infants " was not occasioned by any differences 
of opinion as to the salvation of infants in these com- 
mittees as distinguished from the grand committee. 

We shall give a few additional witnesses from leading 
divines who were not members of these committees, and 
who may therefore be regarded as representing the other 
sections of the Westminster Assembly. We shall begin 
with the Prolocutor. 

William Twisse, defending the doctrine of reproba- 
tion against Mr. Heard, says : 

" If many thousands, even all the infants of Turkes and Sara- 
zens dying in originall sinne, are tormented by him in Hell fire, 
is he to be accounted the father of cruelties for this ? And I 

* Page 21. t Page 33. 



126 EXCESSES. 

professe I cannot devise a greater shew and appearance of cruelty, 
than in this. Now I beseech you consider the spirit that breath- 
eth in this man (Heard) ; dares he censure God, as a Father of 
cruelties for executing eternall death upon them that are guilty 
of it ? " * 

One of the most influential divines in the Westminster 
Assembly was Stephen Marshall, the great preacher of 
the civil wars. Marshall preached a " Sermon of the 
Baptizing of Infants " in Westminster Abbey at a morn- 
ing lecture in 1645. In this sermon he makes the fol- 
lowing objection against the views of those who reject 
infant baptism : 

" This opinion puts all Infants of all Beleevers into the self-same 
condition with the Infants of Turks and Indians, which they all 
readily acknowledge ; and from thence, unavoidably, one of three 
things must follow — 1. Either all of them are damned who die 
in their Infancy, being without the Covenant of Grace, having 
no part in Christ. Or, 2. All of them saved, as having no orig- 
inall Sinne, and consequently needing no Saviour ; which most 
of the Anabaptists in the world doe own, and therefore bring in 
all Pelagianism, Universal Grace, Free- Will, etc. Or, 3. That 
although they be tainted with Originall corruption, and so need 
a Saviour, Christ doth pro beneplacito, save so?ne of the Infants of 
Indians and Turks, dying in their Infancy, as well as some of the 
Infants of Christians, and so carry salvation by Christ out of the 
Church, beyond the Covenant of Grace, where God never made 
any promise. 

" That God hath made a promise to be the God of Beleevers, 
and of their Seed, we all know ; but where the promise is to be 
found, that he will be the God of the seed of such parents who 
live and die his enemies, and their seed, not so much as called 
by the preaching of the Gospel, I know not. 

" These men say the Covenant of Grace made to the Jews, 
differs from the Covenant made with us; but I desire to know 
whether in the one, or in the other, they find any promise of Sal- 



* " The Riches of God's Love unto the Vessells of Mercy," Oxford, 1653, 
P. 135. 



whither? 127 

vation by Christ to any Infants dying in their Infancy, whose 
parents no way belonged to the Family of God, or Covenant of 
Grace."* 

April 2, 1646, Stephen Marshall published "A de- 
fence of Infant Baptism in Answer to two Treatises and 
an Appendix to them concerning it lately published by 
John Tombes." For this work Marshall received a vote 
of thanks by the Westminster Assembly. He replies to 
Tombes thus : 

" Next let us see how you avoid being goared by the three 
homes of my Syllogisme. I said, all being left in the same con- 
dition, 1. All must be saved. Or 2. All must bee damned. Or 3. 
God saves some of the Infants of the Turkes, and so?ne of the In- 
fants of beleevers pro beneplacito. 

"After some discourse of the two first of these, you deny the 
consequence : // follows not (say you) God may save sojne, and 
those some ?nay bee the Infants of beleevers, a?id none of the Infants 
of Turks and I?idians. 

" Its true, a man that will may venture to say so ; and if an- 
other will, he may venture to say, That those some, are the I?ifants 
of Pagans, and not of Christians : and hee that should say so, 
hath as good warrant for this, as you have for the other, accord- 
ing to yoicr principle. But what's this to the question before us ? 
I said, This opinion leaves them all in the like condition ; One 
having no more reference to a promise than another. 

" Now if you will avoid being goared by any of these three 
homes, you should have shewed, that according to your opin- 
ion, there is some promise for some of the Infants of beleevers, 
though there be none for the Infants of Pagans. But instead of 
shewing how your doctrine and opinion leaves them : you tell me 
what God may possibly doe in his secret Counsell, which is alto- 
gether unknowne to us. But I perceive your selfe suspected this 
answer would not endure the tryall : and therefore you quarrell 
at that expression of mine, That if any of the Infants, of such as 
live and die Pagans be saved by Christ ; then salvation by Christ is 
carryed out of the Church, whereof God hath made no promise. 

* Page 7. 



128 EXCESSES. 

"Against this you except ; i. That salvation is not carry ed out 
of the invisible Church ; though some Infants of Pagans should bee 
saved by Christ. 

" I answer, it's true ; and I adde, That if any man shall say, 
the Devils should be saved by Christ : even that Opinion would not 
carry salvation out of the invisible Church. But Sir, we are en- 
quiring after the salvation of them to whom a promise of salva- 
tion is made. Now when you can prove that God hath made a 
promise, that he will gather a number, or hath a number whose 
names are written in the Lambs book, although their Parents 
never knew Jesus Christ, nor themselves ever live to bee in- 
structed, you may then perswade your Reader to beleeve, that 
even some of the Infants of Pagans dying in their Infancy be- 
long to the invisible Church : and till then, you must give him 
leave to beleeve that this answer is brought in as a shift, onely 
to serve your present need."* 

William Carter, a leading preacher among the Inde- 
pendents and a member of the Westminster Assembly, 
thus distinguishes between the children of believers and 
the children of unbelievers : 

" That which made this difference was not to be found in that 
which was meerly natural ; for the Jewes were borne in originall 
Sinne, and corrupted thereby as much as the Gentiles ; but in 
something supernatural, namely, because the Jewes, though they 
were sinful too, yet they were under the means of grace, and they 
had God engaged by covenant to them and their children for 
their good. But as for the Gentiles, he left them to their natural 
condition, without such means to mend them, nor was God en- 
gaged so to them for their good ; but they were under the curse 
of God, therefore they grew wild as a tree in the Wildernesse that 
hath none to order it. And so were all those that came of them, 
such children of such parents, alike under the curse of God in 
sinne, and not looked after or regarded by the Lord 

"Therefore I say, this is one thing which makes this differ- 
ence between the children of beleevers, and of unbeleevers, that 
they are holy, and these common or unclean, because they are 



* Pages 87, 88. 



WHITHER? 129 

under such a word of blessing which these are not; yea though 
we cannot with certainty affirm of this or that Infant of a beleever 
that it is inherently holy yet holy as thus separated and differ- 
enced, from those who are common, by that word of blessing 
from God, under which they are. As we cannot upon certainty 
affirm of any particular person in the Church that he is inherently 
holy, because he may make a lye in his confession, yet of every 
such person we can say he is in that sense holy, namely, as sepa- 
rated unto God in that relation, and thereby differenced from 
those who are common or uncleane." * 

Antony Tuckney was a leader among the Westmin- 
ster divines. He was chiefly responsible for the Answers 
to the Questions on the Ten Commandments in the 
Larger Catechism, and was chairman of the Committee 
that prepared the Shorter Catechism. July 4, 1652, he 
preached at Cambridge a sermon on Acts iv. 2. This was 
published in 1654 under the title " None but Christ," with 
an Appendix discussing the salvation of — " I. Heathen; 
2. Those of the Old World, the Jews and others before 
Christ ; and 3. Such as die infants and idiots, etc., now 
under the gospel." This was written in answer to a 
book of Nathaniel Culverwell, entitled " Light of Na- 
ture," 1652, which advocated the salvation of some of the 
heathen. 

"1. It cannot rationally be said, that there was an equall in- 
vincibility of ignorance in those Heathens, to that which is in 
Infants and distracted persons, which want the use of reason 
which they had ; and therefore might have made more use of it 
then they did ; and therefore their sin was more wilful, and so 
made them more obnoxious to Gods wrath, which therefore these 
Infants, etc., as less guilty, may in reason better escape. 

" 2. How God worketh in, or dealeth with elect Infants, which 
dye in their infancy (for any thing that I have found) the Scrip- 
ture speaks not so much, or so evidently, as for me (or it may be 



11 The Covenant of God with Abraham opened," London, 1654, pp. 101, 102. 



130 EXCESSES. 

for any) to make any clear or firm determination of it. But yet 
so much as that we have thence ground to believe, that they 
being in the Covenant, they have the benefit of it, Acts iii. 25. 
Gen. xvii. 7. 

" Whether God may not work and act faith in them then, (as 
he made John Baptist leap in the womb) which Beza, and others 
of our Divines deny, and others are not unwilling to grant, I dare 
not peremptorily determine. Yet this I may say, that he acteth 
in the souls of Believers in articulo mortis, when some of them 
are as little able to put forth an act of reason, as they were in 
articulo naiivitatis. But the Scripture (for any thing that I 
know) speaks not of this, and therefore I forbear to speak any 
thing of it. 

" Only (as I said) it giveth us ground to believe, that they 
being in the Covenant may be so wrapt up in it, as also to be 
wrapt up in the bundle of life, and did it give us but as good 
hopes of the Heathens (of whom it rather speaks very sadly) as 
it doth of such Infants, I should be as forward as any to perswade 
my self and others, that they were in a hopeful condition. 

" For such infants, suppose they have not actual faith, so as to 
exert it, yet they may have it infused in the habit, they are born 
in the Church, and in the Covenant, and what the faith of the 
Church, and of their believing parents may avail them, I do not 
now particularly inquire into ! . . . . 

" And whereas mention was made of an anticipating and pre- 
venting grace of God, by which without faith he might be saved ; 
I conceive and believe that it is abundant anticipating and pre- 
venting grace, when either in Him or in any, God beginneth and 
worketh faith to lay hold on Christ. But such a preventing 
grace as to accept us for Christ sake without faith in Christ, the 
Scripture mentioneth not, is a new notion of a young Divine, 
which without better proof must not command our belief, or im- 
pose upon our credulity." * 

This passage also makes it clear that the Westminster 
divines did not mean to make the salvation of infants a 
different salvation from that of adults. The work of 
effectual calling is the same with reference to all the elect. 

* " None but Christ," pp. 134-37. 



WHITHER? 131 

The special mention of infants and incapables does not 
separate them from the work of effectual calling. It 
defines with reference to them that this calling is not in 
the ordinary way of " being outwardly called by the min- 
istry of the word," but in an extraordinary way of being 
inwardly called by the Spirit, who " worketh when and 
where and how he pleaseth." The time, the place, and 
the mode of this effectual calling is not determined. As 
Tuckney does not venture to affirm that this takes place 
in articnlo mortis, so the Confession does not define it. 
But as Tuckney states that it is a new notion of the 
young man Culverwell that there can be salvation with- 
out faith in Christ, and he preached his discourse against 
Culverwell's doctrine that some heathen might be saved, 
and contended that salvation was by faith in Christ 
only ; so the Westminster Confession takes the posi- 
tion that " those whom God effectually calleth he also 
freely justifieth "; * and " God did, from all eternity, de- 
cree to justify all the elect ; and Christ did, in the ful- 
ness of time, die for their sins, and rise again for their 
justification: nevertheless they are not justified, until the 
Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto 
thew"\ 

This section of the Confession was aimed expressly at 
the Antinomian doctrine of eternal justification, and it in- 
sists that there can be no justification until Christ has been 
applied by the Spirit and appropriated by faith. This 
doctrine of eternal justification without faith was urged 
at this time by John Saltmarsh, and is strongly opposed 
by Thomas Gataker in his " Shadowes without Sub- 
stance," published in 1646, thus: 

" Christ you say, is ours without Faith ; but we can not know 

* XI. 1. f XI. 4. 



132 EXCESSES. 

him to be ours but by believing ; and you reject this under the title 
of the Reformed opinion and more generally that none are justified 
or partakers of salvation, but by faith. And if no conditions at 
all be required for obtaining Salvation by Christ as was formerly 
affirmed by you, then neither Faith also : Yea, to this you come 
fully home, where you say, that the Covenant now under the Gos- 
pel is such a kind of Covenant, as was established with Noah, Gen. 
ix. I clear against the strain of the old, wherein ?nan was to have 
his life upon condition. And in this your Reply, you deny the re- 
ceiving of Christ to be acknowledged by you as a condition. And 
indeed, if the promise of salvation by Christ, be as absolute and 
free from all condition as that Covenant made with Noah ; then 
may a man be saved by Christ, tho he never know or look after 
Christ ; as he is sure never to perish by an aecumenicall deluge, 
tho he neither know nor believe, nor do ever heare of such a 
Covenant concerning it."* 

tl 2. The Apostle telleth us in expresse terms, that he believed 
in Christ ; that he might be justified by Christ, thereby implying 
that he was not actually justified, or had part in the justification 
procured and purchased by the death of Christ, until he believed. 
And albeit the ransome, whereby we are freely (in regard of our 
selves) justified, be wholly in Christ Jesus ; yet is he said to be 
set forth for an atonement unto us through faith in his blood ; nor 
where those branches of the wild Olive, which were taken to suc- 
ceed in the roome of those who were broken off, actually in 
Christ, but out of Christ, untill upon their believing they were 
engraffed into Christ." t 

It is very strange in recent times to see Protestant 
divines going against this essential doctrine of the 
Confession in their efforts to escape the doctrine of the 
damnation of infants. This movement seems to have 
been begun by Dr. Archibald Alexander. In his youth 
he was greatly influenced by the Baptists in Virginia ; 
and when President of Hampden and Sidney College, 
in 1797-9, he was greatly troubled about infant baptism, 
and for a while discontinued its use. These influences 



* " Shadowes without Substance," 1646, p. 13. t /. c, p. 44. 



WHITHER? 133 

led him to abandon the Calvinistic doctrine of the dam- 
nation of non-elect infants. 

In a letter to Bishop Mead he says : 

" As infants, according to the creed of all reformed churches, 
are infected with original sin, they cannot, without regeneration, be 
qualified for the happiness of heaven. Children dying in infancy, 
must therefore be regenerated without the instrumentality of 
the Word ; and as the Holy Scriptures have not informed us 
that any of the human family departing in infancy will be lost, 
we are permitted to hope that all such will be saved."* 

Dr. Alexander here teaches a new doctrine, namely, 
that all will be saved except those of whom the Holy 
Scriptures have informed us that they will be lost. 
Nothing is said about the faith of infants. He thinks 
that all such will be regenerated, and saved by regener- 
ation. The Standards teach that only the elect will be 
saved, and that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to 
salvation ; but Dr. Alexander ignores faith and justifi- 
cation for infants, and makes regeneration the means of 
salvation for all those of whom Scripture does not tell 
us that they are lost. I do not see how we can confine 
this enlarged hope of regeneration to infants or even 
heathen, on the ground taken by Dr. Alexander. 

This new doctrine of the universal salvation of infants 
is still further advanced by Dr. Charles Hodge, who 
teaches that : 

" Faith is the condition of justification. That is, so far as 
adults are concerned, God does not impute the righteousness of 
Christ to the sinner, until and unless, he (through grace), re- 
ceives and rests on Christ alone for his salvation." t 

Thus by the clause " so far as adults are concerned," 
Dr. Hodge exempts infants from the exercise of faith. 



* " Life of Dr. Arch. Alexander," p. 584. New York, 1854. f III., p. 118. 



134 EXCESSES. 

This new doctrine reaches its culmination in the teach- 
ing of Dr. A. A. Hodge, who takes the position that : 
" in the justification, therefore, of that majority of the 
elect which die in infancy, personal faith does not me- 
diate." * 

And thus these American divines undermine the vital 
principle of the Reformation, Justification by faith 
only ; for they teach that the majority of the elect are 
justified without faith. They go over into the Anti- 
nomian error of justification without faith. This error 
is tersely exposed by Wallis, the Westminster divine : 

" That we are saved not only in the eternal decree without faith, 
but even in the execution, is strange divinity. For if without 
faith, then without Christ, for Christ is no further ours, than ap- 
prehended by faith. As for the eternal decree (of Election he 
means), it is true we are not through faith, elected to salvation, 
but we are elected to salvation through faith. Faith is not the 
cause of the decree, but faith is decreed to be the cause of 
salvation."! 

The Westminster Standards allow no advance in the- 
ology in the direction of justification without faith. They 
do not define the time when the justification of elect 
infants and incapables takes place ; they do not define 
the place where it takes place ; they do not define the 
mode in which Christ is presented to the elect infant, 
and how the child exercises saving faith. They leave all 
these questions undetermined. 

We are able to say that the Westminster divines were 
unanimous on this question of the salvation of elect 
infants only. We have examined the greater part of the 
writings of the Westminster divines, and have not been 
able to find any different opinion from the extracts we 



* Princeton Review, 1878, p. 315. f " Truth Tried," 1642, pp. 95, 96. 



WHITHER? 135 

have given. The Presbyterian churches have departed 
from their standards on this question, and it is simple 
honesty to acknowledge it. We are at liberty to amend 
the Confession, but we have no right to distort it and to 
pervert its grammatical and historical meaning. 

The difficulty involved in the salvation of elect infants 
is: to define when the Spirit effectually calls them by 
11 enlightening their minds, spiritually and savingly, to 
understand the things of God, taking away their heart of 
stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh ; renewing 
their wills, and by his almighty power determining them 
to that which is good ; and effectually drawing them to 
Jesus Christ." How "being quickened and renewed by 
the Holy Spirit " is the infant " thereby enabled to answer 
this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in 
it " ? In the infant who lives to years of discretion we 
may see the operation of the divine Spirit in regenera- 
tion, renewal, and drawing him to Christ ; and with re- 
gard to infants dying in infancy, we can understand that 
the dynamic work of regeneration has been wrought ; 
but how can we conceive of the drawing to Jesus Christ, 
the answer to the call, the embracing of the grace freely 
offered, and the exercise of faith ? The Westminster 
Standards leave all these questions unanswered for us, 
and we are free to speculate as much as we please, so 
long as we do not trench upon the substance of doctrine 
that has been defined. It is, however, contrary to the 
Westminster Confession to believe in the salvation of 
all infants, or to believe in the salvation of any of the 
heathen who are capable of being outwardly called by 
the ministry of the Word. 

As late as 1728, Professor Simpson, of Glasgow, was 
charged with heresy for teaching 



136 EXCESSES. 

" that it is more than probable, that all unbaptized infants 
dying in infancy are saved, and that it is manifest, if God should 
deny his grace to all, or any of the children of infidels, he would 
deal more severely with them than he did with fallen angels." * 

The doctrine of the extension of redemption to a few 
elect persons who are idiots and incapable of being out- 
wardly called by the ministry of the Word, to elect in- 
fants who might be baptized, and to the few of the chil- 
dren of believers who died unbaptized, might leave the 
time, place, and mode of their calling and acceptance of 
Christ undetermined. But the doctrine of the universal 
salvation of infants dying in infancy involves the doc- 
trine that " heaven is in great measure composed of the 
souls of redeemed infants," and that " the majority of 
the elect die in infancy "; and " that the vast majority 
of our race are saved, not in the ordinary way of the 
outward call by the ministry of the Word, but in an ex- 
traordinary way, without that outward call.f 

This extension of salvation, vastly beyond what the 
Westminster divines contemplated, constrains us to ask 
what that extraordinary way is, and how it may be rec- 
onciled with the ordinary way of salvation, or how the two 
ways may be comprehended in a greater whole. 

As Dr. Prentiss says : 

" The change from the position generally held by Calvinistic 
divines at the beginning, or in the middle of the seventeenth 
century, to the ground taken by Dr. Charles Hodge, in 1871, in 
his ' Systematic Theology ' is simply immense. It amounts to a 
sort of revolution in theological opinion, a revolution all the 
more noteworthy from the quiet, decisive way in which it was at 
last accomplished, the general acquiescence in it, and also the ap- 
parent unconsciousness of its logical consequences." J 



* " Case of Professor Simpson," Edinburgh, 1728. t See p. 174. 

X Presbyterian Review, iv., p. 556. 



WHITHER? 137 

If the Church has failed thus far to advance to the 
inevitable consequences of this doctrine, it cannot re 
frain much longer from it. It must either recede to the 
Westminster position, or, having abandoned it for a new 
doctrine, it must give good reasons for the new doctrine, 
justify it by evidence from Scripture, and make the re- 
construction of the related doctrines that is necessarily 
involved. 

We do not hesitate to express our dissent from the 
Westminster Confession in this limitation of the divine 
electing grace. We are of the opinion that God's elect- 
ing grace saves all infants, and not a few of the heathen. 
We base our right to differ from the Westminster di- 
vines on their own fundamental principle, that the elect- 
ing grace of God is not tied to the administration of 
the ordinary means of grace. 

But it is vain to construct the doctrine of the uni- 
versal redemption of infants on the ruins of the Prot- 
estant doctrine of justification by faith only. It is not 
necessary to destroy the Christian doctrine of the order 
of redemption through Christ. The relief is to be 
found in a more comprehensive view of redemption, and 
an extension of the gracious operations of God into the 
middle state, between death and the resurrection, where 
the order of salvation, begun for infants and others in 
regeneration, may be conducted through all the pro- 
cesses of justification by faith, adoption, sanctification 
by repentance, and glorification in love and holiness, in 
the communion of God and the Messiah. 

FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 

In such ways as these recent Protestant divines under- 
mine and destroy the vital principle of the Reformation, 
justification by faith only. 



138 EXCESSES. 

The doctrine of justification is also injured by the neg- 
lect of the doctrine of forgiveness of sin. 
Luther says : 

" What we need to learn is that we become righteous and are 

released from sins, by the forgiveness of sins Christian 

righteousness is nothing without the forgiveness of sins." * 

Calvin says : 

" The righteousness of faith is a reconciliation with God which 

consists solely in remission of sins It appears, then, that 

those whom God receives, are made righteous no otherwise than 
as they are purified by being cleansed from all their defilements 
by the remission of their sins ; so that such a righteousness may, 
in one word, be denominated a remission of sins." t 

Turretine leads the way in the departure from the 
faith of the Reformation as to forgiveness of sins, and 
many recent divines follow him into worse error. This 
is so well stated by Principal D. W. Simon, that I shall 
simply quote him : 

" Dr. C. Hodge leaves us in no doubt as to his view of the mat- 
ter, though one cannot but be surprised how little is said ex- 
pressly on the subject of the ' forgiveness of sin,' — nay more, how 
rarely the expression occurs, — considering the stress laid on it, 
not only in the Scriptures, but also by the early Protestant 
divines. The official conception of God and his relation to men 
may be said to have reached its climax in his system : ' Men may 
philosophize about the nature of God, his relation to his crea- 
tures, and the terms on which he will forgive sin, and they may 
never arrive at a satisfactory conclusion ; but when the question 
is simply, What do the Scriptures teach on this subject? the 
matter is comparatively easy. In the Old Testament and in the 
New, God is declared to be just, in the sense that His nature de- 
mands the punishment of sin : that, therefore, there can be no 
remission without such punishment, vicarious or personal ; that 
the plan of salvation symbolically and typically exhibited in the 

* Kostlin's " Luther's Theologie," vol. ii., p. 445. " Luther's Werke," v. s. 247. 
t " Institutes," iii. 11, 21. 



WHITHER? 13Q 

Mosaic institution, expounded in the prophets, and clearly and 
variously taught in the New Testament, involves the substitution 
of the incarnate Son of God in the place of sinners, who assumed 
their obligation to satisfy divine justice, and that He did in fact 
make a full and perfect satisfaction for sin, bearing the penalty of 
the law in their stead.' * 

" ' Redemption is deliverance from evil by the payment of a 
ransom. The price paid for our ransom is Christ.'! 'Justifica- 
tion cannot be mere pardon ' J for justification is a forensic pro- 
cedure, a 'judicial act.'§ ( A pardoned criminal is not only just 
as much a criminal as he was before, but his sense of guilt and 
remorse of co7iscience are in no degree lessened. Pardon can re- 
?nove only the outward and arbitrary pe?talty. The sting of sin 
remains.' || 

"And this is the theology that claims to be par excellence, 
Biblical and ' orthodox,' according to the recognized standards 
and divines of Protestantism ! " H 

(2). We have already seen that the climax of this de- 
parture from the faith of the Reformation has been at- 
tained by Dr. A. A. Hodge. He changes the order of 
salvation in an Antinomian direction. This error is so 
tersely exposed by Dr. Shedd that I shall simply 
quote him : 

"Dr. Hodge asserts that 'justification must precede regenera- 
tion ' (p. 340) ; that ' regeneration follows immediately upon be- 
ing received into the favor of God on the condition (ground ?) 
of Christ's righteousness' (p. 341) ; and that 'faith is the neces- 
sary source of regeneration ' (p. 343). This is not the teaching 
of the Westminster standards, to say nothing of Scripture, re- 
specting the order of regeneration and justification. According 
to these, justification is preceded by effectual calling. 'Those 
whom God effectually calleth, He also freely justifieth ' (Con- 
fess., xii. 1). But effectual calling includes regeneration, which 
constitutes a part of it. 'They who are effectually called and 



* " Systematic Theology," vol. ii., pp. 478 seq. \ /. c, p. 514. 

% 1. c, vol. Hi., p. 125. § Vol. iii., p. 126. || Vol. ill. , p. 128. 

Tl " Redemption of Man," pp. 280-281. See also pp. 95-96 of this chapter. 



140 EXCESSES. 

regenerated, have a new heart and a new spirit created in them ' 
(Confess., xiii. i). Regeneration is that part of effectual calling 
which is described as 'savingly enlightening the mind and renew- 
ing and powerfully determining the will, so that the elect are 
thereby made willing and able freely to answer God's call and 
embrace the grace offered therein' (/. c. 67). Prior to this im- 
parting of Divine life to the soul dead in sin, neither faith nor 
repentance (the two converting acts) is possible. By it the elect 
have 'the grace of faith whereby they are enabled to believe to 
the saving of their souls' (Confession, xiv. 1). Regeneration is 
thus plainly taught to be prior to the act of faith in the order of 
salvation, and faith is unquestionably prior to justification. An 
unbeliever cannot be justified. Justifying faith is a product of 
regeneration, and cannot, therefore, be the ' source ' of it, as Dr. 
Hodge asserts. There is nothing either in Scripture or the 
Westminster symbols to support the view that God first ' changes 
the relation of the justified person to the law, and receives him 
into His favor on the condition of an imputed righteousness, 
and then regeneration follows immediately upon this ' (p. 341). 
If this be so, it would follow either that God justifies a person 
prior to faith in Christ and without faith, or else that an unre- 
generate person can exercise saving faith — which latter position, 
is denied over and over again in the Westminster standards." * 

These specimens of modern errors might be in- 
creased in number, but we have given a sufficient num- 
ber to show that leading divines have greatly injured the 
Westminster system, partly by neglecting important 
doctrines, but chiefly by excess in speculation ; and that 
there are many errors of this kind that must be removed 
from the minds of the ministry and the people, ere they 
can clearly understand the Westminster Confession, or 
the Faith of the Reformation, or can make any true 
progress in theology. 



* Presbyterian Review, vol. viii., p. 758. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FAILURES. 

The second group of chapters of the Westminster 
Confession of Faith embraces those doctrines which 
Orthodoxism has failed to recognize and value. These 
are: 

XII. Of Adoption. I section. 

XIII. Of Sanctification. 3 sections. 

XIV. Of Saving Faith. 3 sections. 

XV. Of Repentance unto Life. 6 sections. 
XVI. Of Good Works. 7 sections. 
XVII. Of the Perseverance of the Saints. 3 sections. 
XVIII. Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation. 4 sections. 
XIX. Of the Law of God. 7 sections. 
XX. Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience. 4 sec- 
tions. 
XXI. Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day. 8 sections. 
XXII. Of Lawful Oaths and Vows. 7 sections. 

Total of 53 sections. 

As the first group of doctrines, considered in our last 
chapter, gives us the doctrines upon which scholastic 
Calvinists have ever laid the greatest stress, this group 
gives us the most characteristic features of Puritanism, 
and exhibits the advance that the second Reformation 
made beyond the first Reformation and the orthodoxy 
of the continent of Europe. 

It is evident at a glance that these doctrines have 
been neglected by modern evangelical divines. But 

(141) 



142 FAILURES. 

no one can estimate the extent of their departure from 
the faith of their fathers until he has considered them in 
some detail. 

It is sometimes said that Presbyterians never get be- 
yond a certain chapter of the epistle to the Romans. 
It might be said with more propriety that they do not 
go beyond the eleventh chapter of the Confession of 
Faith. If the tendency of the Church at present is to 
advance in an ethical direction, then true progress is 
not only to study the closing chapters of the epistle to 
the Romans, but also the characteristic doctrines of 
Puritanism contained in the eleVen chapters that make 
up the middle section of the Westminster Confession. 

It is instructive to observe how Dr. Charles Hodge 
deals with these doctrines. In his " Systematic Theol- 
ogy " he has a chapter on Sanctification, in which he 
also treats of Good Works, making in all 46 pages ; he 
expounds the Law of God on the basis of the Cate- 
chisms in 207 pages, but passes over the general doc- 
trine of the Law as given in the Confession ; he dis- 
cusses Saving Faith and Assurance, briefly, in 17 pages 
under the head of Justification; and this is all he at-" 
tempts to do with these grand chapters of Puritanism. 
Dr. Charles Hodge is not the only delinquent here. 
He simply discloses the general attitude of the Presby- 
terian Church to these doctrines. 

ADOPTION. 

The doctrine of Adoption is passed over altogether by 
Dr. Charles Hodge. Dr. A. A. Hodge is obliged to con- 
sider it in his " Exposition of the Confession of Faith," 
but the three pages given to it are striking in their meagre 
and unsatisfactory statements. His brief discussion in 
his Outlines is little better. The scholastic divines have 



WHITHER? 143 

so exaggerated divine sovereignty and salvation in its 
relations to the divine justice, that they have little con- 
ception of the vital relation between Christ and His peo- 
ple established in redemption, and of the divine Father- 
hood and human sonship involved therein. The whole 
process of salvation is to them so mechanical, objective, 
and external, that they do not apprehend the deeper and 
more comprehensive relations of the redemption of man- 
kind. The Fatherhood of God is one of the most prec- 
ious doctrines of the Scriptures, and we rejoice that it 
has its due place and importance in the Westminster 
Symbols ; but the people have been deprived of its com- 
fort, until recent times, by the neglect of it in the teach- 
ing of so-called orthodox divines. 

The doctrine of the Fatherhood of God was brought 
into prominence by the debate between the two Scottish 
theologians, Dr. Candlish and Prof. Crawford. Both of 
these divines gave their attention simultaneously to this 
important doctrine. Dr. Candlish made it the theme of 
his Cunningham Lecture, and claimed that he was not 
merely reviving an old doctrine, but making an advance 
in theology in his exposition of it. Dr. Candlish says : 

" But if this relation of sonship, as shared by the Son with his 
disciples, has suffered from its close connection with regenera- 
tion not having been sufficiently recognised, it has suffered per- 
haps still more seriously from so many of our theologians having 
failed to recognise sufficiently its entire distinction and separa- 
tion from justification. The two have, to a large extent, been 
confounded and mixed up together. What God does in the act 
of adoption has been so represented as to make it either a part 
of what he does in the act of justification or a mere appendage 
and necessary corollary involved in that act."* 

Prof. Crawford agrees with Dr. Candlish as to the im- 



* " Fatherhood of God," Edin., 1867, p. 237. 



144 FAILURES. 

portance of the doctrine and its discrimination from 
justification. These two divines differ chiefly on the 
question of the natural Fatherhood of God as embracing 
all men. This Prof. Crawford correctly affirms and 
strongly maintains against Dr. Candlish. At the same 
time he carefully discriminates the gracious Fatherhood 
of the redeemed from the natural Fatherhood of all 
men. Turretine, here as elsewhere, led the older divines 
into error. He included Adoption under Justification, 
and in this was followed by Hill, Dick, Dabney, and 
others. 

Dr. Candlish claims that Adoption in the Westminster 
Standards 

" is left in the last degree vague and indefinite." . ..." I hold 
them, therefore, to have virtually left the whole of that depart- 
ment of theology which bears on God's paternal relation to his 
people, and their filial relation to him, an entirely open question, 
— a perfect tabula rasa, — so far as any verdict or deliverance of 
theirs is concerned. I consider that we have the fullest liberty 
to sink new shafts in this mine, which they evidently had not ex- 
plored, if only we take care that our diggings shall do no damage 
to any of the far more important mines which they did explore, — 
and explored so thoroughly and so well." * 

Some of the positions taken by Dr. Candlish were 
new, but in the main he and Prof. Crawford simply re- 
affirm the Westminster doctrine of the gracious Father- 
hood of God. Dr. Candlish is certainly incorrect in his 
statement that the Westminster Confession is " vague 
and indefinite." I think that any one who will read 
such old Puritan writers as Francis Roberts and John 
Ball will see that the doctrine of adoption was very 
prominent in their minds. The fact, that the West- 
minster Confession gives the doctrine a separate chap- 

* " Fatherhood of God," Edin., 1867, pp. 286, 287. 



WHITHER? 145 

ter, is an evidence of their estimate of its importance. 
Dr. Candlish was looking at the Westminster Standards 
through the glasses of his own age, and was uncon- 
sciously imputing to the Westminster divines the faults 
of their successors in the 18th century. 

The doctrine of the Fatherhood of God was so neg- 
lected in the 18th century that, in its modern revival 
in the 19th century, it looked to most people as a new 
doctrine, and was opposed by not a few theologians as a 
novelty and error. Others hailed it as a new inspiration 
from heaven. Mr. Heard goes so far as to say that : 

"Among the lost truths which the New Theology has re- 
covered from oblivion, there is perhaps none so central and none 
so vital as that of the Fatherhood of God ; it is the key-stone 
of the arch on which the whole theology of the coming age is to 
spring up."* 

But Mr. Heard, and others who have preceded him, 
exaggerate the universal Fatherhood of God in His re- 
lation to our entire race, and do not give the gracious 
Fatherhood of God its proper value. The older the- 
ologians certainly failed in their appreciation of this uni- 
versal Fatherhood, but they did not fail in their concep- 
tion of the gracious Fatherhood. The theology of the 
1 8th century failed in both. It is only fair to state, 
however, that some at least of the Westminster divines 
knew how to make the proper distinctions in the doc- 
trine of the Fatherhood of God. As Dr. A. F. Mitchell 
has well said : ' 

" The very phrase which some suppose to be an invention of 
his (Dr. Crawford), or some modern Calvinist, was not unknown 
to the divines of the Assembly. Dr. Harris, in a sermon preached 
before the House of Commons, from Luke xviii. 6, 7, 8, says : 
1 God's adversaries are in some way his own. He is a piece of a 



* " Old and New Theology," p. 82. Edin. : T. & T. Clark, 1885. 



146 FAILURES. 

Father to them also. For he is a common Father by office to 
all, a special Father by adoption to saints, a singular Father by 
nature to Christ. A Prince, besides his particular relation to his 
children, is pater peltries .... and is good to all, though with a 
difference. So here, though Christ hath purchased a peculiar 
people to himself, to the purpose of salvation, yet others taste of 
his goodness.' " * 

SANCTIFICATION. 

The chapter on Sanctification is one of the finest in 
the Confession. It was framed over against errors in 
this department that were then rampant in England, 
and that have ever since troubled the churches of Great 
Britain and America. The chief forms of error, as re- 
gards sanctification, were among the various schools of 
Antinomians. The Westminster definition of sanctifica- 
tion is given in chap. xiii. : 

" They who are effectually called and regenerated, having a 
new heart and a new spirit created in them, are further sancti- 
fied, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ's death 
and resurrection, by his word and Spirit dwelling in them ; the 
dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the several 
lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified, and 
they more and more quickened and strengthened, in all saving 
graces, to the practice of true holiness, without which no man 
shall see the Lord. 

"II. This sanctification is throughout in the whole man, yet 
imperfect in this life : there abideth still some remnants of cor- 
ruption in every part, whence ariseth a continual and irreconcil- 
able war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit 
against the flesh. 

" III. In which war, although the remaining corruption for a 
time may much prevail, yet, through the continual supply of 
strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate 
part doth overcome : and so the saints grow in grace, perfecting 
holiness in the fear of God." 



* " Minutes of the Westminster Assembly," Introd. lxiii. 



WHITHER? 147 

The order of salvation is the same for every one that 
is redeemed. The work of sanctification follows the acts 
of justification and adoption. Sanctification is a work 
that is carried on by God in a gradual process until per- 
fect holiness has been attained by man. This doctrine 
rules out the Antinomian doctrine of immediate sanctifi- 
cation. Sanctification is a work carried on by the divine 
grace until its end is accomplished in mankind. It is 
not immediate at the beginning of the Christian life, it 
cannot be immediate at any stage of the Christian life. 
It is not a progressive work for a certain period of time 
and then suddenly transformed into an act, as many 
Arminians and semi-Arminians teach. Some dogmatic 
divines are sound in their advocacy of progressive sanc- 
tification over against these errors of Antinomianism and 
Arminianism ; but they commit an error of no less seri- 
ous consequences when they affirm that sanctification 
becomes immediate at death. The Confession makes 
no such statement as this. Immediate sanctification at 
death is an error added on to the orthodox doctrine of 
sanctification that makes it inconsistent, and virtually 
destroys it. It is true that the Confession states that 
sanctification is " yet imperfect in this life," and that 
"without true holiness no man shall see the Lord "; but 
it does not say that man is made perfect at the mo- 
ment of death. The progress in sanctification goes on 
after death in the middle state, until it is perfected there, 
and man is prepared by the processes of grace for the 
final judgment. 

Dr. A. A. Hodge also commits an error when he says: 
" The inward means of sanctification is faith." * " The 
sole internal means or condition of salvation is faith in 



* " Commentary on Confession of Faith," p. 266. 



148 FAILURES. 

or on Christ." * The Confession takes a different posi- 
tion. It does not introduce faith into the definition of 
sanctification at all, except so far as it is included in " all 
saving graces," in which man is " more and more quick- 
ened and strengthened." These saving graces are es- 
pecially " Saving Faith " and " Repentance unto Life," 
as they are defined in chapters xiv. and xv. of the Confes- 
sion. There is reason to believe that repentance has the 
same relation to sanctification as faith has to justifica- 
tion. 

Furthermore, we take exception to the strong state- 
ment that " sanctification is never perfected in this life." f 
The Confession simply states that it is "yet imperfect in 
this life." This we believe, so far as the past experience 
of mankind is concerned, and also so far as the present 
circumstances of mankind are concerned. But the Con- 
fession does not take the position that " sanctification 
will never be perfect in this life." The time is coming, 
as we believe, when the Church and individual Christians 
may be able to attain that ideal of holiness in this life. 
Entire sanctification is commanded and held up as the 
ideal of Christianity ; and we must recognize that it is a 
possibility under divine grace ; and that possibility will 
ultimately be attained. To say that it will never be per- 
fected in this life (i) paralyzes all efforts for entire sanc- 
tification in this world ; (2) takes the erroneous position 
that there will be unsanctified Christians on the earth at 
the day of judgment ; (3) makes sanctification an im- 
mediate act of God, either at the hour of death for the 
dead, or at the hour of judgment for the living ; which 
really destroys the doctrine of progressive sanctification 
altogether. It is not strange that so little progress in 



* " Presbyterian Doctrine," p. 27. 

t C. Hodge, /. c, iii. 245 ; A. A. Hodge, /. c. % p. 265. 



WHITHER? 149 

sanctification has been made with these errors obstruct- 
ing the way. They must be removed in order to ad- 
vance in a holy life. 

SAVING FAITH. 

The chapter on Saving Faith is of great excellence. 
The dogmatic divines have so expended their strength 
upon faith, as the instrument of justification ; and have 
so narrowed and confined its meaning, in order to avoid 
errors in the doctrine of justification ; that they have 
considered it merely in its first exercise, as the hand 
grasping the righteousness of God. One must really 
read such works as John Ball's " Treatise of Faith," and 
Rutherford's " Trial and Triumph of Faith," in order to 
apprehend what were the views of the Westminster di- 
vines on this subject. The Westminster definition, in 
chap, xiv., is a model of its kind : 

" II. By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true, whatso- 
ever is revealed in the word, for the authority of God himself 
speaking therein ; and acteth differently upon that which each 
particular passage thereof containeth ; yielding obedience to the 
commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the 
promises of God for this life, and that which is to come. But the 
principal acts of saving faith are, accepting, receiving, and resting 
upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal 
life, by virtue of the covenant of grace." 

This section of the Confession teaches that it is the 
same kind of saving faith that recognizes the authority 
of God Himself speaking in the Scriptures, and that 
accepts Christ alone for justification, sanctification, 
and glorification. Rutherford understood this when he 
wrote : 

" To the new Creature, there is in Christ's Word some charac- 
ter, some sound of Heaven, that is in no voyce in the world, but 
in his only, in Christ represented to a believer's eye of Faith ; 



150 FAILURES. 

there is a shape, and a stampe of Divine Majesty, no man know- 
eth it, but the believer ; and in Heaven and Earth, Christ hath 
not a Marrow like himselfe. Suppose there were an hundred 
counterfeit Moones, or fancied Sunnes in the Heaven, .a naturall 
eye can discerne the true Moone, and the naturall Sun from 
them all ; the eye knoweth white not to be blacke, nor green. 
Christ offered to the eye of Faith, stampeth on faith's eye, speces, 
little Images of Christ, that the soule dare goe to Death, and to 
Hell with it ; this, this only was Christ, and none other but he 
only."* 

How different A. A. Hodge, when he says : 

" Saving faith receives as true all the contents of God's word, 
without exception. After we have settled the preliminary ques- 
tions as to what books belong to the inspired canon of Scrip- 
ture, and as to what is the original text of those books, then the 
whole must be received as equally the word of God, and must in 
all its parts be accepted with equal faith, "t 

The antithesis to the Confession here springs into the 
eye. What has Saving Faith to do with these prelim- 
inary questions of Biblical criticism ? They are in the 
field of scientific theology. Saving Faith goes directly 
to God, when the sacred writings are presented to it ; 
it finds God in them and does not raise or consider 
questions of criticism. 

The next section of the Confession also gives a state- 
ment of vast importance : 

" III. This faith is different in degrees, weak or strong ; may 
be often and many ways assailed and weakened, but gets the vic- 
tory ; growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance, 
through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith." 

This doctrine of growth in saving faith, is one of the 
distinguishing features of Calvinism, and one of the most 
important achievements of Puritanism. It is based on 



* " Tryal and Triumph of Faith," p. 98. t /. c, pp. 279, 280. 



WHITHER? 15i 

the teachings of Jesus and His discrimination of the 
several kinds of faith. It is one of the most practical 
doctrines for the life and experience of every Christian. 
And yet the dogmatic divines ignore it, and the minis- 
ters seldom touch upon it. The effort of the Church 
seems to be directed chiefly to this, to induce men to 
simple justifying faith, and to get them to begin the 
Christian life. Most Christians have no conception of 
the wonderful possibilities of growth in faith, of the 
comfort that there is in store for those who are strong in 
faith, the joy of the victorious faith, and the holy peace 
of those who have attained a full assurance through Christ. 
It is high time for Christian teachers to raise the ban- 
ner of progressive religion, in which there shall be an ad- 
vance in faith and sanctification. Salvation is only begun 
with simple faith and justification. If these do not ad- 
vance, by growth in faith and sanctification, they discredit 
themselves and excite doubt as to their reality and vitality. 

REPENTANCE UNTO LIFE. 

This is one of the most characteristic doctrines of 
Puritanism, and one of the most important features of 
Protestant Christianity, and yet it has been so neglected 
by Protestant divines, that Dr. Charles Hodge, in his 
immense work on " Systematic Theology," has no room 
for it at all. The Confession divides the theme into 
six sections, each of which is a gem of Christian the- 
ology and Christian experience. But all this is beyond 
the range of Traditional Orthodoxy. 

Dr. Dabney has recently recognized this defect. He 
says : " The brevity and in some cases, neglect with 
which this prominent subject is treated by many sys- 
tems is surprising and reprehensible." * 

* "Theology," p. 657. 



152 FAILURES. 

This doctrine is so fundamental that Luther made it 
the first of the theses he nailed upon the ancient church 
door at Wittenberg, as the beginning of the Protestant 
Reformation. " When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ 
says repent, he means that the whole life of believers 
upon earth should be a constant and perpetual repent- 
ance." In these words Luther struck the key-note of 
the Reformation ; — he gave the master word that be- 
gins every reformation in the life of the individual and 
every advance in public religion. Luther learned this 
word from the Bible. There are many words that are 
technical in Christian theology that are not found in the 
Scriptures ; but Repentance is all over the Bible, and is 
so plain that the most ignorant cannot escape it. On 
this account, it has exerted its influence upon Protest- 
ant students of the Bible, notwithstanding the teach- 
ings of dogmaticians. There has, however, been great 
neglect of the doctrine of repentance in the modern 
Church. There have been several reasons for this state 
of things. In the time of the Reformation the conflict 
was so carried on that it was necessary to separate faith 
from works, and justification from sanctification. This 
resulted in an evil tendency in Protestantism that went 
so far as to exaggerate justification by faith only, and 
to underrate sanctification, repentance, and good works. 
This narrowing of the original basis of reform was the 
chief reason why Staupitz, the teacher of Luther, and 
other evangelical men of his school, were compelled to 
break with Luther and his Reformation. 

The Puritan Reformation, however, had as its aim to 
maintain a pure doctrine, a pure church, and a pure and 
holy life. Hence great stress was laid upon repentance. 
But the second Reformation passed through a similar 
experience to the first Reformation, and its advance in 



WHITHER? 153 

Christian theology was abandoned, and narrower views 
prevailed. Antinomianism gained such ground in Great 
Britain that Methodism attacked Calvinism itself as 
essentially Antinomianism ; and the Marrow men were 
ruled out by the orthodox in Scotland. The Methodists 
revived many of the characteristic features of Puritan- 
ism, and magnified the doctrines of sanctification and 
repentance. Jonathan Edwards is noteworthy for the 
stress he lays upon these topics. But the anti-Method- 
ists resisted these doctrines and insisted upon the nar- 
rower scholastic divinity.* 

Methodism greatly emphasized the doctrine of re- 
generation, and so exaggerated the conviction of sin, 
that the holy life of repentance that followed them, 
was again neglected, and the dogmaticians led the 
ministry and the people back to the narrower views 
of the older scholastic divines. There can be no real 
revival, no solid progress in theology, that does not 
begin with repentance. What is faith alone worth at 
the beginning of a Christian life, if it is not followed 
by repentance that governs the whole life? What is 
the benefit of justification if it does not open the 
door to sanctification ? Why should a man be regen- 
erated if he is not to grow in grace ? Why go 
through the agonies of conviction of sin if he is not to 
battle against sin until it is entirely put away? Re- 
pentance and sanctification govern the whole life of the 
Christian from the first moment of conversion until 
the day of ultimate judgment. Progressive Chris- 
tianity must overcome these faults of orthodoxism, 
and by a reafifirmation of repentance begin a new ref- 
ormation that will take up the work which the earlier 



* Briggs' " American Presbyterianism," pp. 238 seq. 



154 FAILURES. 

reformations left incomplete, and carry it on to perfec- 
tion. 

GOOD WORKS. 

The Westminster Confession adheres to the Protest- 
ant doctrine of good works, making those careful 
definitions and distinctions that divide the Reformed 
Churches from the Church of Rome. It is a very re- 
markable development in modern Protestantism, that 
the principle of evangelical freedom should be so gen- 
erally abandoned with its doctrines of repentance, sanc- 
tification, and holy love ; and that a puritanical and 
scholastic legalism should have arisen in its place, in 
which the sense of duty and obligation to the law of 
God dominate the Christian life. The Westminster Con- 
fession (chap, xvi.) states that : 

"Good works are- only such as God hath commanded in his 
holy word, and not such as, without the warrant thereof, are de- 
vised by men out of blind zeal, or upon any pretence of good 
intention." 

It needs but a slight familiarity with the history of 
the Presbyterian Church, the reading of the Digest of the 
General Assembly, or attendance upon any General As- 
sembly in recent years, to convince any one that the 
General Assembly has repeatedly violated this section 
of the Constitution, by prohibiting certain things that 
are not prohibited by the Word of God, and by com- 
manding what the sacred Scriptures do not command. 
The Presbyterian Church in the United States was di- 
vided on the question of the sin of slavery. The 
Southern Presbyterian Church was certainly correct in 
the position, that slavery is not forbidden in the Word 
of God ; and that, therefore, according to the Consti- 
tution of the Presbyterian Church, the General Assem- 



WHITHER? 155 

bly had no right to forbid it. Every Act against slavery 
in the minutes of the General Assemblies has been a 
violation of this section of the Westminster Confession. 
The Presbyterian Church is not agreed on the ques- 
tion of total abstinence from intoxicating drinks. Cer- 
tainly the sacred Scriptures do not prescribe total ab- 
stinence, and therefore the Presbyterian Church has no 
right to prescribe it. Every deliverance of General As- 
semblies in favor of total abstinence has violated this 
law of the Confession of Faith. Dr. Charles Hodge 
correctly expounded the Confession when he said : 

" Nothing that the Bible pronounces true can be false ; nothing 
that it declares to be false can be true ; nothing is obligatory on 
the conscience but what it enjoins ; nothing can be sin but what 
it condemns. If, therefore, the Scriptures under the Old Dispen- 
sation permitted men to hold slaves, and if the New Testament 
nowhere condemns slave-holding, but prescribes the relative 
duties of masters and slaves, then to pronounce slave-holding to be 
in itself sinful is contrary to the Scriptures. In like manner, if the 
Bible nowhere condemns the use of intoxicating liquors as a bev- 
erage, if our Lord himself drank wine, then to say that all use of in- 
toxicating liquor as a beverage is sin, is only one of the many forms 
of the infidelity of benevolence. It is as much contrary to our 
allegiance to the Bible to make our own notions of right or wrong 
the rule of duty as to make our own reason the rule of faith." * 

It would not be difficult to find other examples of 
this modern spirit of legalism that has taken possession 
of synods, General Assemblies, and eminent Presbyte- 
rian divines, and impelled them to violate the Confes- 
sion of Faith. Doubtless these men had "good inten- 
tion," and in some cases at least these actions were 
" devised by men out of blind zeal "; but these do not 
constitute valid grounds for definitions of good works. 

* A. A. Hodge, " Life of Charles Hodge," p. 334. N. Y. : Charles Scribner's 
Sons. 



156 FAILURES. 

I shall not discuss the right or wrong of slavery or 
total abstinence or any other of these questions of 
morals and casuistry. The point I have to make is that 
the Westminster standards make the Word of God the 
sole arbiter of good works. This Protestant position 
was taken over against the Roman Catholic doctrine, 
that the Church could frame a code of morals, and that 
there were counsels of perfection in addition to divine 
commands. In my opinion the Westminster statement 
is too strict here. There are good works other than 
those that " God hath commanded in his holy word," 
and there are sins not " forbidden in the sacred Scrip- 
tures." The Westminster divines themselves, in their 
exposition of the Ten Commands in the Larger Cate- 
chism, exceed the specifications of Scripture, and violate 
their own rule. There are general principles of Chris- 
tian ethics given in the Scriptures that lead to a higher 
Christian morality in our century than was possible to 
the Christian mind several centuries ago. Doubtless the 
coming centuries will have enlightened consciences that 
will be far beyond our highest conceptions of Christian 
holiness. All this ethical progress is stimulated and 
guided by the Scripture. But these higher ethical pre- 
cepts are not laid down in the Scripture, and cannot be 
required of men on the authority of the Scriptures. 

There is also an element of truth in the Roman Cath- 
olic distinction between divine commands and counsels 
of perfection, which is based on the teachings of Jesus 
and of Paul, that does not involve the Roman Catholic 
heresy of works of supererogation. The school of Stau- 
pitz rightly recognized this distinction, and the Luther- 
ans erred in rejecting it. The Church did not err for 
fifteen centuries in this distinction. All men are not 
required to make the sacrifices for Christ that some are 



WHITHER? 157 

glad to make under the call and grace of God. There 
are grades in Christian perfection. There is no dead 
level in the holy life. Protestantism should reopen this 
question, and use this ancient distinction in its own 
scheme of Christian ethics. 

The modern Presbyterian Church has departed from 
the Westminster divines in its standard of morals and 
good works, and there is lack of definite views among 
the ministry and the theologians in the whole depart- 
ment of Christian ethics. The whole doctrine of Sanc- 
tification is in confusion. 

THE ASSURANCE OF GRACE 

We pass over the chapter on the perseverance of the 
saints, with the simple remark that this chapter has not 
been neglected by the dogmaticians. They have battled 
over it on account of its connection with the doctrine of 
election and predestination. At the same time, they 
have not given the doctrine its proper place between 
repentance and good works on the one side and assur- 
ance of grace on the other. With undue stress on the 
doctrine of perseverance, there has been a strange neg- 
lect of the doctrine of assurance. This has been the 
result of the neglect of the degrees of faith in the doc- 
trine of saving faith, and of repentance and sanctifica- 
tion. A Methodist minister some years ago insisted to 
me that Presbyterians did not believe in the doctrine of 
assurance. I could hardly convince him by reading to 
him the statement of the Confession of Faith. He said 
that he had never met a Presbyterian who believed the 
doctrine ; that Presbyterians only hoped they were saved, 
but were never assured of their salvation. My observa- 
tion and inquiries have led me to the opinion, that in the 
main the Methodist minister was correct. The ministry 



158 FAILURES. 

and people of the Presbyterian Church have not as a rule 
sought assurance of grace and salvation as it has ever 
been their privilege and duty to do. The Reformed 
doctrine that " this infallible assurance doth not so be- 
long to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may 
wait long, and conflict with many difficulties before he be 
partaker of it " (xviii. 3) : has induced the mass of Pres- 
byterians to rest content with the possession of simple 
justifying faith. They have not realized the grace of 
adoption and " the testimony of the Spirit of adoption "; 
they have not advanced in the grace of sanctification and 
so have not " the inward evidences of those graces unto 
which these promises are made." 

THE LAW OF GOD. 

The chapter on the Law of God gives the general 
principles upon which the Law of God is interpreted. 
The interpretation itself is not given in the Confession, 
but in the Larger Catechism. Dr. Charles Hodge, in his 
" Systematic Theology," follows the Larger Catechism, 
but does not consider the principles laid down in the 
Confession. The Confession teaches that the moral law 
contained in the Ten Commands is of perpetual obliga- 
tion, but that " all the ceremonial, political, and judicial 
laws of the Old Testament have been abrogated." The 
law of the Ten Commands is the only Old Testament 
law that is binding on Christians. Those ministers and 
theologians who teach that any other laws of the Old 
Testament legislation are binding, whether contained in 
the priest code, the deuteronomic code, or the covenant 
codes, transgress this principle of the Confession. There 
is a large amount of transgression of the Confession at 
this point, especially in the sermonic literature. 

The uses of the law are very carefully defined in an 



WHITHER? 159 

evangelical manner. The law is a rule of life informing 
us of the will of God, discovering our sins, and showing 
us the rewards and penalties of obedience and disobedi- 
ence — but it is not as a covenant of works to justify or 
condemn : for " the spirit of Christ subduing and en- 
abling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully, 
which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to 
be done " (xix. 7). 

These principles are excellent, but the Larger Cate- 
chism, by its undue elaboration of the Ten Commands, 
sets an example for Protestant legalists to follow ; so 
that, it is to be feared evangelical liberty has too often 
been swallowed up in legal obligation. 

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 

The chapter on Christian Liberty is in some respects 
the noblest part of the Confession of Faith. In it are 
wrapt up the experiences of a century of struggle for 
liberty of conscience. It involves the principles upon 
which British Christianity has unfolded since the 17th 
century. 

This Christian Liberty is based on freedom from the 
guilt of sin, from bondage to the law, from the dominion 
of sin and " boldness of access to the throne of grace 
and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God." 
On this freedom of sonship is based the great Puritan 
principle : 

" God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from 
the doctrines and commandments of men, which are in anything 
contrary to his word, or beside it in matters of faith or worship. 
So that to believe such doctrines, or to obey such command- 
ments out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience; 
and the requiring an implicit faith and an absolute obedience, is 
to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also" (xx. 2). 



160 FAILURES. 

If these noble words had been heeded, history would 
not have recorded those sad divisions that have dis- 
tracted Presbyterianism and retarded its growth. The 
conflicts in the Presbyterian Church and the divisions 
that have resulted therefrom, have been due to the efforts 
of dogmaticians and ecclesiastics, who have endeavored 
to make their private opinions, or the tenets of their 
party, the laws of the Church and the tests of orthodoxy. 

The conscience of a child of God cannot be bound 
by anything that God Himself does not speak in His 
Holy Word to the believer himself. This makes the 
Scriptures, or rather God in the Scriptures, the only 
arbiter.* 

Those who exalt the Confession of Faith above the 
Scriptures, transgress the doctrine of the Confession 
itself, which limits its authority to those things in which 
it is in accord with the Scriptures. Those who exalt 
their school of theology above the Scriptures and the 
Confession, sin against both Confession and Scripture ; 
and this is practically the sin that a large proportion of 
Presbyterian ministers are unconsciously committing at 
the present time. If this principle of Christian liberty 
were followed, the systems of divinity now in use would 
sink in value, the ministry would again expound the 
Confession and give more attention to the study of the 
Scriptures. If this principle were followed still further, 
the Confession itself would be found to be even more 
inadequate as an expression of the doctrines of the Bible 
than the Westminster divines themselves could imagine. 
They revised the Articles of the Church of England and 
made a new Confession. It is hardly probable that they 
supposed that their descendants would wait two cen- 



* This statement is in entire concord with chap. i. 10. 



WHITHER? 161 

turies and a half without any attempt at a thorough re- 
vision of their Confession, or an effort to make a new 
one in its stead 

RELIGIOUS WORSHIP. 

The Westminster divines were very anxious to reform 
the worship of God's people in accordance with the 
Word of God. They gave great attention to this mat- 
ter in their Directory for Worship. They laid down the 
general principles of worship in the Confession.* 

They also strongly urged the observance of the Sab- 
bath. This was one of the chief marks of the Puritan 
party in the Church of England. f We have already 
observed that the modern Presbyterians have entirely 
changed their attitude in this matter of worship.;): This 
change is evident also in the doctrine of the Sabbath. 
The Puritan doctrine of the Confession was hardened 
into a puritanical doctrine. The Puritan doctrine of 
the Sabbath rested upon the words of Moses and Jesus 
that the day was essentially a day of worship ; to which 
abstinence from labor, and rest must yield as subordinate 
principles. But the puritanical theory of the Sabbath, 
that still prevails in some quarters, reiterates the Phar- 
isaic doctrine of the Sabbath, and makes abstinence 
from labor the most important thing, and vexes the min- 
istry and people with numberless questions of casuistry. 

The chapters on Lawful Oaths and Vows is another 
chapter under the head of worship. The doctrine of 
oaths is maintained over against the various Societies 
of Friends and Anabaptists. The doctrine of vows is 
also based upon the sacred Scriptures. The Confession 
opposes " Popish " vows, but urges the evangelical vow. 



* Chap. xxi. f Briggs' " American Presbyterianism," pp. 48 seq. 

X See also pp. 48 seq. 



162 FAILURES. 

" It is not to be made to any creature, but to God alone : and 
that it may be accepted, it is to be made voluntarily, out of faith 
and conscience of duty, in way of thankfulness for mercy received, 
or for obtaining of what we want ; whereby we more strictly 
bind ourselves to necessary duties, or to other things, so far and 
so long as they may fitly conduce thereunto " (xxii. 6). 

There are two parties in the Church at the present 
time. The one party makes great use of the vow, as in 
Total Abstinence, in the White Cross movement, and in 
the Christian Endeavor Society. Whatever may be said 
as to their excessive use of the Vow, they are certainly 
not in conflict with the Westminster Confession, or the 
sacred Scriptures in their doctrine of the vow. The only 
question we can raise is whether the vows they propose 
are proper vows. 

There is another party that is so hostile to such vows 
as these that they oppose all vows, even those that are 
usually taken at confirmation and at the sacrament of 
the Lord's Supper. This party in the Presbyterian 
Church is in plain transgression of the doctrine of the 
vow in the Confession of Faith. 

We have gone over the eleven chapters that make up 
the central section of the Westminster Confession. We 
have seen a general neglect of these precious doctrines 
by the Traditional Orthodoxy. The current Orthodox- 
ism has fallen sadly short of the Westminster ideal. As 
it erred by excessive definition in the first eleven chap- 
ters, it has erred by a general failure in the second eleven 
chapters, so that the Presbyterian Church at the present 
time is at an angle with its Confession of Faith ; and 
subscription to the Westminster system in the historic 
sense is out of the question. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Departures. 

We have seen that in the first eleven chapters of the 
Westminster Confession modern Traditionalism errs 
chiefly by excessive definition ; that in the second group 
of eleven chapters orthodoxism errs by failure and neglect ; 
we shall now find in the last group of eleven chapters 
errors in the direction of heterodoxy, meaning by hetero- 
doxy, doctrines that depart from those set forth in these 
chapters of the Confession. We might express the dif- 
ferences in more technical language by saying that in 
the first eleven chapters, orthodoxism is extra-confes- 
sional ; in the second eleven chapters, infra-confessional ; 
and in the third eleven chapters, contra-confessional. 
The chapters of this group are as follows : 

XXIII. Of the Civil Magistrate. 4 sections. 

XXIV. Of Marriage and Divorce. 6 sections. 
XXV. Of the Church. 6 sections. 

XXVI. Of the Communion of Saints. 3 sections. 
XXVII. Of the Sacraments. 5 sections. 
XXVIII. Of Baptism. 7 sections. 
XXIX. Of the Lord's Supper. 8 sections. 
XXX. Of Church Censures. 4 sections. 
XXXI. Of Synods and Councils. 4 sections. 
XXXII. Of the State of Man after Death and of the Resur- 
rection of the Dead. 3 sections. 
XXXIII. Of the Last Judgment. 3 sections. 
Total of 53 sections. 

We shall consider nine of these in this chapter, re- 

(163) 



164 DEPARTURES. 

serving the last two chapters of the Confession for sep- 
arate discussion. 

CHURCH AND STATE. 

The American Presbyterian Church entirely revised 
the chapter of the Confession relating to the Christian 
magistrate. It also expunged from the Confession (xx. 4) 
the clause, " and by the power of the civil magistrate." 
This section combines Church and State in the previous 
context : 

" They who, upon pretence of Christian liberty, shall oppose 
any lawful power, or the lawful exercise of it, whether it be civil 
or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God. And for their pub- 
lishing of such opinions, or maintaining of such practices as are 
contrary to the light of nature or to the known principles of 
Christianity, whether concerning faith, worship, or conversation ; 
or to the power of godliness ; or such erroneous opinions or prac- 
tices as either in their own nature or in the manner of publish- 
ing or maintaining them, are destructive of the external peace and 
order which Christ hath established in the Church; they may law- 
fully be called to account, and proceeded against by the censures 
of the Church [and by the power of the civil magistrate]," (xx. 4). 

The section as amended leaves to the Church the 
right to proceed against all those who oppose the civil 
authority by rebellion or by violations of civil law, but 
does not recognize the right of the civil magistrate to 
act either in civil or in ecclesiastical matters. It justifies 
all the so-called civil declarations of the Northern Gen- 
eral Assemblies, and is against the doctrine of the South- 
ern Presbyterian Church. But the doctrine of the Con- 
fession ought to be so stated that the civil government 
should be recognized in its legitimate sphere, and the 
boundaries of the civil and ecclesiastical government 
should be defined. The American Episcopal Church give 
the doctrine in much better form in the article : 



WHITHER? 1(55 

" The power of the civil magistrate extendeth to all men, as 
well clergy as laity, in all things temporal, but hath no authority 
in things purely spiritual. And we hold it to be the duty of all 
men who are professors of the Gospel, to pay respectful obedi- 
ence to the civil authority, regularly and legitimately consti- 
tuted " (xxxvii.). 

The American Presbyterians in this matter departed 
from the doctrine of the Westminster Confession and 
the practice of the Presbyterian Churches of the Old 
World ; they exclude the civil magistrate from interfer- 
ence with violations of civil as well as ecclesiastical au- 
thority. But it certainly was not meant to imply that 
the civil magistrate had no authority over violations of 
civil authority. They did not notice that this error would 
result from their omission. It was designed to exclude 
the civil authority from interfering with violations of 
religious doctrines and customs. But what shall we say 
to the punishment of a Jew for the violation of the Chris- 
tian Sabbath, or of the punishment of an infidel for 
blasphemy, or of a Mormon or Mohammedan for polyg- 
amy, or of a Protestant for disobedience to the ecclesi- 
astical doctrine of marriage and divorce ? If the Eng- 
lish common law rules in the United States, and that 
makes us a Christian nation, there are some restrictions 
upon this exclusion of the civil magistrate from the 
sphere of religious beliefs and practices. 

The American doctrine of Church and State comes 
out more distinctly in the substitution made for xxiii. 3 
and xxxi. 1 of the Westminster Confession. In the first 
of these, the relation of the civil magistrate to the 
Church is defined. The Synod agreed with the West- 
minster divines that the civil magistrate should not as- 
sume the administration of the Word and sacraments 
or discipline. The American Synod add, — a statement 



166 DEPARTURES. 

of what the civil magistrate might not do, — " or in the 
least interfere in matters of faith." 

The Westminster divines taught the doctrine of an 
established national Church. Accordingly, it is the duty 
of the magistrate 

" To take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the 
Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all 
blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and 
abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all 
the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed " 
(xxiii. 3). 

When the American Synod removed this doctrine 
from our Standards, they made a radical departure in 
faith and practice. The doctrines of one national Churchy 
of national religion, of unity of doctrine and worship, of 
the support of the Church by the State, and the use of 
its strong arm in its behalf — all these doctrines of the 
ages were swept away at once. Instead of them, the 
American Synod recognized a variety of denominations 
of Christians with equal rights, liberty of religious opinion 
and practice, and abandoned civil support and a national 
religion. This is the significant language in which they 
set forth these new doctrines : 

"Yet as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to 
protect the Church of our common Lord, without giving the 
preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in 
such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy 
the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part 
of their sacred functions, without violence or danger " (xxiii. 3). 

They not only took ground against a national estab- 
lishment of religion, but also advanced to the position, 
(1) that there should be no establishment of religion in 
any of the sovereign States of the Republic, and (2) 
that there should be no legislation of those States in 



WHITHER? 1G7 

favor of any denomination or against any denomination, 
but that (3) there should be entire religious equality 
under the law. 

The idea of the unity of the Church and the value of 
a national religion have been overlooked by American 
Christians. They have not been able to appreciate the 
immense advantages that come to a nation in which 
these great ideas are prominent in the minds of the peo- 
ple. It is only in recent years that Americans are awak- 
ing to the importance of these considerations. 

There is at least one body of Christians in whom these 
ideals are regarded as essential doctrine. The Roman 
Catholic Church can never consent to the American 
Protestant doctrine of the separation of Church and 
State. In so far as the American States have adopted 
this doctrine, they have proclaimed a doctrine and have 
established a practice that are against the fundamental 
principles of the Roman Catholic Church. It is not 
true, therefore, that our State Governments are non- 
committal on the doctrines in dispute between the 
Churches. They have " interfered in matters of faith" 
for this doctrine of the union of Church and State is as 
much a matter of faith as the doctrines of the Trinity or 
Justification by Faith. They could not do otherwise. 
They were obliged to take a decided position on one 
side of this great question of Christendom. They have 
in fact rejected the doctrine of the Roman Catholic 
Church, and also the doctrine of all the Established 
Churches of Europe, as to the relation of Church and 
State, and they have adopted the doctrine of the Ameri- 
can Protestant denominations. The States are there- 
fore in this respect really Protestant States, and indeed 
American Protestant States. 

The Roman Catholic Church will make strong and 



168 



DEPARTURES. 



persistent efforts to overcome this Protestant feature of 
our State Governments. It will continue this struggle, 
with the end in view of establishing the Roman Catho- 
lic Church as the religion of the States. It will aim to 
secure legislation in favor of the Roman Catholic Church, 
and against Protestantism. Religious equality, freedom 
of worship, and co-ordination of different denominations 
destructive of the unity and authority of the Church, 
will never be permitted by Rome if she can help it. She 
cannot recognize the toleration of such doctrines by the 
State. We ought not to blame the Roman Catholic 
Church for her political efforts. She cannot do other- 
wise without renouncing her fundamental doctrines. 

The difficulties that Protestantism has to contend 
with here, are very great. If there is anything in a na- 
tional religion and the unity of the Church of Jesus 
Christ, it is high time that American Protestantism 
should rise to the situation, grasp the problem, and en- 
deavor to solve it. The ideals of Christian unity and a 
national religion are rising into greater prominence in 
American Christianity. 

The good fruits of the work of the Synod of 1788 are 
many. Protestantism has had its golden period of 
blessed opportunities. The Protestant Churches have 
grown with wonderful rapidity in the use of the free- 
dom, religious equality, and protection that have been 
guaranteed to them. All of the American denomina- 
tions have shown that a free Church in a free State has 
greater powers of expansion, has greater facilities for 
keeping itself pure and sound, than any established 
Church has ever exhibited. At the same time this ex- 
pansion is at the cost of an immense amount of friction 
and waste, and these efforts to preserve a sound doc- 
trine and uniformity of government and worship, result 



WHITHER? 169 

in the multiplication of denominations, and the perpetu- 
ation of errors in doctrine, government, and worship, in 
organized societies outside the older denominations. 

But notwithstanding all the good effects of the sepa- 
ration of Church and State, no thinking man can con- 
template the present situation without alarm. It is 
clear that there cannot be an absolute separation of 
Church and State. There are a large number of the 
most important interests that are common to the 
Church and the State, such as marriage and divorce, 
education, religious days, public oaths and prayers, and 
the like. On all of these questions the Roman Catho- 
lic Church has a well-defined doctrine, and works upon 
a uniform theory. Protestantism is sadly divided, and 
is at a great disadvantage in the discussion. What is 
the best course to pursue? Is the American doctrine 
of Church and State to be advanced so as to do away 
with a national religion, even in the general and hazy 
sense in which it can now be maintained that we are a 
Christian nation ? Or is the American idea to give way 
to the Roman Catholic, and are we in the future to see 
one State after another establishing the Roman Catho- 
lic Church? There is nothing to prevent such action 
except a sufficient majority of the people to vote down 
any such amendments to the State Constitutions, if they 
should be proposed. If neither of these extremes is to 
be taken, it would seem to be necessary to make a bet- 
ter definition of the relation of Church and State than 
that given us by the Presbyterian Synod of 1788. Their 
revision in this clause, as in the other, was altogether too 
sweeping. It needs limitation and restrictions, if faith 
and practice are to correspond. 

According to the Westminster divines, synods or 
councils could meet only when called by the civil au- 



170 DEPARTURES. 

thority, which was to be present at them, and provide 
that whatever was transacted in them should be ac- 
cording to the mind of God. They were to meet on 
their own authority only when the magistrates were 
open enemies to the Church. According to the Ameri- 
can doctrine, the synods and councils are to meet 
together under the authority and call of the author- 
ities of the Churches, and the civil magistrate has 
nothing to do with them. " No law in any common- 
wealth should interfere with, let, or hinder the due 
exercise thereof among the voluntary members of any 
denomination of Christians, according to their own pro- 
fession and belief." The duty of the magistrate is to 
protect them, and prevent interference by others. Thus 
the Church is sovereign, and entirely independent of the 
State. But here again the Church and State come in 
contact in many ways. It is not so easy to hold them 
apart in practice as in theory. In all questions of prop- 
erty, and where pecuniary relations come into considera- 
tion, and damage is done to the reputations of men by 
the action of the ecclesiastical courts, the State is still 
supreme over any ecclesiastical decisions and determi- 
nations. There are certain definitions and limitations 
that the Church should make to its own powers, if it 
would always be in accordance with the laws of the land. 
Such definitions would tend to prevent hasty and incon- 
siderate action, especially in presbyteries, which some- 
times have an exalted idea of their own sovereignty ; 
and would warn them not to take any action in viola- 
tion of any civil rights, or material interests, or the re- 
ligious liberty and freedom of opinion and doctrinal de- 
velopment, within the limits of the constitution of the 
Church. None of these rights of a minister or layman 
may be infringed with impunity by any ecclesiastical 



WHITHER? 171 

court. The civil courts will see to it, that the Church 
does not violate its own constitution, and that it does 
its members no wrong. 

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 

The chapter relating to marriage and divorce ex- 
presses the views of the Westminster divines on that 
subject ; but these views do not altogether correspond 
with the doctrines and practices of modern society. 

(a). Monogamy is the law of modern society, al- 
though it is not explicitly commanded by the divine 
Word. It does not raise any questions of difficulty ex- 
cept among the Mormons in Utah, and among the mis- 
sionaries to the heathen. But here it is a serious ques- 
tion whether a man should be compelled to abandon all 
his wives except one, and whether wives should be forced 
to separate from their husbands, in the transition from 
polygamy to monogamy, when there is no explicit law 
against polygamy in the Bible. 

(d). The limitations to marriage are not so observed as 
to make their violation cases of discipline in the Presby- 
terian Church. No one thinks of going any further than 
to advise that " it is the duty of Christians to marry 
only in the Lord. And therefore such as profess the 
true reformed religion should not marry with infidels, 
Papists or other idolaters." * No Presbyterian minister 
forbids such marriages, or deals with them in the way 
of discipline. The language of the Confession here is 
unduly polemical against Roman Catholics, and tran- 
scends the authority of the Scriptures. 

(c). The Westminster divines were not consistent with 
themselves when they made the Levitical laws of mar- 



* Chap. xxiv. 3. 



172 DEPARTURES. 

riage a rule for Christians. The American Presbyterian 
Church was troubled for many years by the prohibition 
of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, that was con- 
tained in the Confession of Faith.* 

The Northern and Southern Churches in recent years 
removed this prohibition from the Confession by strik- 
ing out the clause : " The man may not marry one of 
his wife's kindred nearer in blood than he may of his 
own : nor the woman of her husband's kindred nearer in 
blood than of her own." This law was disregarded by 
many of our most eminent ministers and laymen for years 
before it was blotted out. It ought never to have been 
put into the Confession, because it rested upon a mis- 
taken interpretation of the Levitical code. But this re- 
vision ought to have gone farther and the references to 
the Levitical code in the proof-texts should have been 
stricken out — for, according to the statement of chapter 
•xix., only the moral law written in the two tables of 
the Ten Commandments is binding on Christians, the 
Levitical code having been abrogated under the New 
Testament. The Westminster Confession was incon- 
sistent with itself in affirming the obligation of the 
Levitical code of marriage.f 

(d). There are great differences of opinion on the sub- 
ject of divorce. The Confession limits divorce to adultery 
and wilful desertion.;}: But the laws of most American 
States extend the privileges of divorce to those who are 
injured in many other ways than the two mentioned in 
the Confession. It is not conceded by all exegetes that 
our Saviour means to limit divorce to the technical sin 
of adultery. If this be so, it is difficult to see how a 
conflict can be avoided between Christ and the teachings 



* Chap. xxiv. 4. + See p. 154. % Chap. xxiv. 6. 



WIIITJIER? 173 

of Paul. The Confession certainly adds Paul's reason 
to that given by Jesus. If, now, the adultery as given 
by Jesus is to be so extended as to include the wilful 
desertion of Paul, what barrier is there in principle to 
prevent its extension still further, so as to cover other 
cases of internal rupture of the marriage relation, such 
as personal violence and abuse, habitual intoxication, 
and criminal conduct?* There is a lack of harmony 
between the Church and State in this matter, which re- 
sults in great injury to good morals. 

THE CHURCH. 

The Westminster doctrine of the Church is admirable 
in all its definitions. It has not been revised so far as 
the statements of the Confession are concerned ; but it 
has been revised in the teachings and life of a consider- 
able number of the Presbyterian ministry and people. 
There are several important differences that have de- 
veloped under this head. 

(i). The Premillenarians take exception to the doc- 
trine that the visible Church is the kingdom of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. f They hold that Christ will not 
ascend His throne and will not establish His kingdom 
until the second advent. ;f 

(2). There are many divines who object to the state- 
ment that the Pope of Rome is " that antichrist, that 
man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself, 
in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God,"§ 
not only on the ground that it is not true in fact, but 



* See Dorner, " Sittenlehre," Berlin, 1885, s. 50x3. t Chap. xxv. 2. 

X See E. R. Craven, "Excursus Basileia," pp. 93 seq. of his edition of 
Lange's " Commentary on Revelation," N. Y., 1874. 
§ Chap. xxv. 6. 



174 DEPARTURES. 

also on the ground that this statement of the Confession 
is a false interpretation of 2 Thessalonians ii. 3, 4.* 

(3). But the most serious departure from the West- 
minster doctrine is made by those who deny the unity 
and catholicity of the visible Church. The Westmin- 
ster definition is admirable : 

" The visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under 
the gospel, (not confined to one nation as before under the law,) 
consists of all those throughout the world, that profess the true 
religion, together with their children ; and is the kingdom of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which 
there is no ordinary possibility of salvation " (xxv. 2). 

The visible Church is composed of all professing the 
true religion and no others. There is no ordinary pos- 
sibility of salvation to others. This shuts out the 
heathen world and their offspring, all who are not pro- 
fessing Christians, with the exception of imbeciles, and 
such others as, owing to providential circumstances, are 
unable to attach themselves to the visible Church. In 
this statement the Westminster Confession is consistent 
with its doctrine as to effectual calling of elect infants 
and other elect persons, and as to the exclusion of the 
heathen. f The following extract will show how far an 
eminent Presbyterian divine has departed from this doc- 
trine : 

"You see that organization cannot be the essence of the 
Church. I tell you that the infinite majority of the spiritual 
Church of Jesus Christ come into existence outside of all organ- 
ization. Through all the ages, from Japan, from China, from In- 
dia, from Africa, from the islands of the sea, age after age, mul- 
titudes flocking like birds have gone to heaven of this great 
company of redeemed infants of the Church of God ; they go 
without organization. Now, this is demonstration; that, if the 



* See p. 185. t See pp. 120 seq. 



WHITHER? 175 

great majority of the Church always has existed outside of or- 
ganization, then organization, while of assistance, is not essential 
to the Church. You may add church to church ; these are but 
the incidental forms which the universal Church of God assumes 
on different occasions under the guidance of the Spirit, under 
the guidance of God's providence as a great propaganda for the 
purpose of accomplishing the great and divine work of carrying 
the Gospel to the ends of the earth."* 

(4). We shall consider, under the head of the Church, 
the chapters on Church censures (xxx.) and Synods and 
Councils (xxxi.), because these are really an elaboration 
of the principles of the chapter just considered. Their 
doctrine is what may be called a jure divino Presbyteri- 
anism. The Westminster divines thought that they had 
found in the Scriptures the Presbyterian platform of 
church government. No one can doubt their consci- 
entiousness in the matter, who has any familiarity with 
their writings. The jure divino theory of church gov- 
ernment was then held by the Episcopalians and Inde- 
pendents as well as the Presbyterians. Their differences 
were not in the theory of the divine authority for 
church government, but in the interpretation of the 
passages of Scripture upon which they built their theo- 
ries. The fundamental theory of the Westminster di- 
vines that all church government must derive its au- 
thority from the Scriptures has been abandoned by the 
vast majority of modern Presbyterians. They have not 
revised the statements of the Confession on this subject, 
but they are entirely out of harmony with them. 

The introductory statement under the head of Church 
Censures is very significant : 

" The Lord Jesus, as king and head of his church, hath therein 
appointed a government in the hand of church-officers, distinct 



* A. A. Hodge's M Popular Lectures," p. 208. 



176 DEPARTURES. 

from the civil magistrate." II. " To these officers the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven are committed, by virtue whereof they have 
power respectively to retain and remit sins, to shut that kingdom 
against the impenitent, both by the word and censures ; and to 
open it unto penitent sinners, by the ministry of the gospel, and 
by absolution from censures, as occasion shall require " (xxx. i, 2). 

The Confession of Faith does not go into details in 
the enumeration of the officers of the Church. This 
was reserved for the Form of Government, in which 
every statement is fortified by passages of Scripture to 
prove divine authority for it. 

The Westminster Assembly came into conflict with 
Parliament just here. The Westminster Assembly sent 
up to Parliament their advice as " to keeping away scan- 
dalous and unworthy persons from the Lord's table," 
enumerating certain sins. Parliament passed an ordi- 
nance authorizing certain commissioners, by them ap- 
pointed, to decide in " cases not enumerated." The 
Westminster Assembly, on March 23, 1645, sent up a 
petition to Parliament affirming that 

" The provision of commissioners to judge of scandals, not enu- 
merated, appears to their consciences to be so contrary to that 
way of government which Christ hath appointed in his Church, 
in that it giveth power to judge of persons to come to the sacra- 
ment, unto such as Christ hath not given that power." . . . . " That 
the power of judging in cases not enumerated, and to keep back 
from the sacrament all such as are notoriously scandalous, doth 
belong to the several elderships by divine right, and by the will 
and appointment of Christ." * 

Parliament regarded this petition as a breach of the 
privileges of Parliament, and sent down nine questions 
for them to answer as regards the jure divino. The 
Assembly began discussing these questions, but were 
allowed occasionally to lay them aside for more im- 

* " Minutes of Westminster Assembly," p. 457. 



WHITHER? 177 

portant matters connected with the composition of the 
doctrinal Standards. They were, however, answered by 
the Provincial Assembly of London in an official doc- 
ument * signed by the moderator and clerks : 

The Provincial Assembly of London herein maintained that 
" 'there is a Church Government of divine right under the New 
Testament,' that the rule of that Government is Holy Scripture, 
the fountain of it Jesus Christ as mediator ; that it is a spiritual 
power or authority derived from Jesus Christ, and exercised by 
church officers, endowed by Him ; that the several acts of this 
power are public prayer and thanksgiving, singing of Psalms, 
public ministry of the Word of God in the congregation, in 
reading the Scriptures and singing, the catechetical propounding 
or expounding of the Word, the administration of the Sacra- 
ments, the ordination of Presbyters with imposition of the hands 
of the Presbytery, the authoritative discerning and judging of 
doctrine according to the Word of God, admonition and public 
rebuke of sinners; rejecting, purging out, or putting away from 
the communion of the Church, wicked and incorrigible persons, 
seasonable remitting, receiving, comforting, and authoritative 
confirming again in the communion of the Church, those that 
are penitent, taking special care for reiief of the necessities and 
distresses of the poor and afflicted members of the Church. The 
end of this government is the edifying of the Church of Christ. 
The receptacle of this power of church government is not the 
civil magistrate as the Erastians contend, nor the coetus fidelium 
or body of the people, as presbyterated, or unpresbyterated as 
the Separatists and Independents pretend, but Christ's own offi- 
cers which He hath created jure divino in His Church. These 
officers are, (i) pastors and teachers ; (?) ruling elders ; (3) dea- 
cons. The power of the keys or proper ecclesiastical power is 
distributed among these church officers so that the deacons have 
the care of the poor, the ruling elders and pastors combine the 
power of jurisdiction, the pastors and teachers the preaching of 
the Word and administration of sacraments. The Presbytery is 



* This was published under the title, "Jus divinum Regiminis Ecclesiastici "; 
or "The Divine Right of Church Government asserted and evidenced by the 
Holy Scriptures," London, 1646. 



178 DEPARTURES. ' 

the body of ruling elders and pastors having this power of jurisdic- 
tion which may be the lesser assemblies, consisting of the minis- 
ters and ruling elders in each single congregation, called the 
Parochial presbytery, or congregational eldership, and the greater 
assemblies consisting of church governors sent from several 
churches and united into one body for government of all those 
churches within their own bounds. These greater assemblies 
are either presbyterial or synodal, — presbyterial consisting of the 
ministers and elders of several adjacent or neighboring single 
congregations or parish churches, called the presbytery or 
classical presbytery ; synodal consisting of ministers and elders 
sent from presbyterial assemblies to consult and conclude about 
matters of common and great concernment to the Church within 
their limits, and these are either Provincial, embracing ministers 
and elders from several presbyteries within one province ; Na- 
tional, ministers and elders from several provinces within one 
nation ; and (Ecumenical, ministers and elders from the several 
nations within the whole Christian world. These are all of di- 
vine right, and there is a divine right of appeals from the lower 
to the higher bodies, and of the subordination of the lower to 
the higher in the authoritative judging and determining of 
causes ecclesiastical." * 

These doctrines of the Provincial Assembly of Lon- 
don and of the Westminster Assembly are no longer the 
doctrines of American Presbyterians. This will be clear 
from the following extract from Dr. A. A. Hodge: 

" There are not two churches, the one visible and the other in- 
visible. There is, and can be ever, but one single, indivisible 
Church of Jesus Christ."! .... "The permanent results of 
biblical interpretation unite with the history of Christ's provi- 
dential and gracious guidance of the churches in proving that 
he never intended to impose upon the Church as a whole any 
particular form of organization. Neither he nor his apostles 
ever went beyond the suggestion of general principles and actual 
inauguration of a few rudimentary forms." .... "The Church 

* Briggs' " Provincial Assembly of London," Presbyterian Review, ii., pp. 54 
seq. 

t " Popular Lectures," p. 300. 



whither? 179 

exists antecedently to and independently of any organization, 
and its far larger part, embracing all mankind of all centuries 
dying in infancy, extends indefinitely beyond all organizations. 
All the more it is certain that no special form can be essential 
to the existence, or even to the integrity, of the Church." * 

THE SACRAMENTS. 

The chapters of the Westminster Confession relating 
to the sacraments are admirable definitions. They main- 
tain the Calvinistic doctrine over against the Roman 
Catholics and Lutherans on the one hand, and the 
Zwinglian theory on the other. The sacraments are not 
merely " holy signs," but they are also " seals of the 
covenant of grace." They not merely " represent Christ 
and his benefits," but they " confirm our interest in 
him." They not only exhibit grace, but they confer 
grace. 

" The Grace which is exhibited in or by the sacraments, rightly 
used, is not conferred by any power in them ; neither doth the 
efficacy of a sacrament depend upon the piety or intention of 
him that doth administer it, but upon the work of the Spirit, 
and the word of institution, which contains, together with a pre- 
cept, authorizing the use thereof, a promise of benefit to worthy 
receivers " (xxvii. 3). 

This section of the Confession has been departed from 
in several items of doctrine. 

A considerable proportion of the ministry of the 
Presbyterian Church hold low views of the sacraments, 
regarding them as signs, but not as seals, looking upon 
them as symbols, but not as real means for conferring di- 
vine grace. 

The Westminster statements carefully exclude the 
error that the grace of God is conferred ex opere operato 
by the mere use of the sacraments, and affirm the free 



* " Popular Lectures," pp. 304-5. 



180 DEPARTURES. 

grace of God, which may use the sacraments or not as 
seems to Him best in His administration of grace. As 
God is free on the one hand, so man is free on the other. 
The grace of God is not conferred on unworthy persons 
who use the sacraments. Personal faith is required in 
order to receive the grace of God that is conferred by 
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and there must be 
a worthiness for all who are to receive the sacrament of re- 
generation. They must be in the covenant of grace as be- 
lievers or the children of believers. If there be present the 
divine intention to confer grace and sacramental worthi- 
ness, then the grace is really conferred by the sacraments. 

" The Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper differ, in 
that baptism is to be administered but once, with water, to be a 
sign and seal of our regeneration and ingrafting into Christ, and 
that even to infants ; whereas the Lord's Supper is to be admin- 
istered often, in the elements of bread and wine, to represent and 
exhibit Christ as spiritual nourishment to the soul, and to con- 
firm our continuance and growth in him, and that only to such 
as are of years and ability to examine themselves."* 

Hence it is that a Westminster divine — such as Cor- 
nelius Burgess, the vice-president of the Westminster 
Assembly — could write a book entitled " Baptismal Re- 
generation of Elect Infants "; and that the Westminster 
Directory instructs the minister at the Lord's table to 
say, " Take ye, eat ye ; this is the body of Christ, which 
is broken for you ; do this in remembrance of him." 
The doctrine of baptismal regeneration and of the real 
presence of Christ at the Lord's table are as truly in the 
Westminster Standards as they are in the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer of the Church of England. In the conflict 
with Episcopalians, Presbyterians have gradually drifted 
away from their own standards. 



* " Larger Catechism," Quest. 177. 



WHITHER? 181 

As Dr. A. F. Mitchell well says : 

" The doctrine taught in chapters xxvii., xxviii., and xxix., as to 
the nature of the sacraments generally, and of the Lord's Supper 
especially, is such as could have grown up nowhere else so surely 
as on British soil, where the truth was slowly and gradually de- 
veloped in the minds of the Reformers, was watered by the 
blood of the martyrs, and so was finally and firmly rooted in the 
affections of their countrymen. It is, in brief, the teaching of 
Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley ; of Hooker, Ussher, and many 
others, their true-hearted successors in the South, as well as of 
Knox, who, from his long residence in England, and with English 
exiles on the Continent, has thoroughly caught up their warm 
and catholic utterances. This teaching is as far removed from 
the bare remembrance theory attributed to the early Swiss Re- 
formers, as from the consubstantiation of Luther and the local or 
supra-local presence contended for by Roman Catholics and An- 
glo-Catholics. It is so spiritual, yet so really satisfying, that even 
some High Churchmen have owned that it would be difficult to 
find a better directory in the study of questions relating to this 
sacrament than is supplied in the Confession of Faith ; while 
those of another school freely grant that, on the doctrine of the 
sacraments, they ' do not perceive a shade of difference from the 
teaching of the Church of England.' The language throughout 
chapter xxix. is as nearly as possible identical with that of the 
Irish Articles." * 

ROMAN CATHOLIC BAPTISM. 

There has been a departure from the Westminster 
doctrine of the sacraments in the Presbyterian Church, 
by the new theory that Roman Catholic baptism is in- 
valid. 

The General Assembly in 1790 made a deliverance 
upon the subject of the validity of baptism, which is in 
entire harmony with the Reformed faith and practice. 
The members of that Assembly were those who framed 
the constitution of the American Presbyterian Church, 



* " Minutes of Sessions of Westminster Assembly," Introduction, p. lxviii. 



182 DEPARTURES. 

and knew what they were doing when they made this 
wise deliverance : 

" Resolved, That it is a principle of the Church that the un- 
worthiness of the ministers of the gospel does not invalidate the 
ordinances of religion dispensed by them. It is also a principle 
that as long as any denomination of Christians is acknowledged 
by us as a Church of Christ, we ought to hold the ordinances dis- 
pensed by it as valid, notwithstanding the unworthiness of particu- 
lar ministers. Yet, inasmuch as no general rule can be made to 
embrace all circumstances, there may be irregularities in particu- 
lar administrations by men not yet divested of their office, either 
in this or in other churches, which may render them null and 
void. But as these irregularities must often result from circum- 
stances and situations that cannot be anticipated and pointed 
out in the rule, they must be left to be judged of by the prudence 
and wisdom of church sessions and the higher judicatories to 
which they may be referred."* 

There are three important statements in this deliver- 
ance: (i), The unworthiness of ministers does not invali- 
date the ordinances ; (2), none but a Christian Church 
c:m. administer Christian ordinances; (3), there maybe 
irregularities in the administration of ordinances which 
render them invalid. 

(1). The first statement is in accordance with the Con- 
fession : 

" Neither doth the efficacy of a sacrament depend upon the 
piety or intention of him that doth administer it, but upon the 
work of the Spirit and the word of institution, which contains, 
together with a precept authorising the use thereof, a promise of 
benefit to worthy receivers " (xxvii. 3). 

It is the teaching of the Westminster Standards that 
the sacrament of baptism is efficacious to worthy re- 
ceivers. Hence a repetition of the sacrament is impos- 
sible. The form may be repeated, but the work of the 



* W. E. Moore, " Presbyterian Digest," 1873, p. 659. 



WHITHER? 183 

Spirit, which it seals, is but once. A repetition of a 
valid baptism dishonors it, and is to that extent a sin 
against the Holy Ghost, who makes a valid baptism 
efficacious. Hence the Westminster Confession says : 
"The sacrament of baptism is but once to be adminis- 
tered to any person." * As Herbert Palmer, the chief 
author of the Larger Catechism, says : " Baptism is to be 
administered to any one once, and no more ; because as we 
can be born but once naturally, so but once spiritually." f 
Stephen Marshall, the great preacher of the Westmin- 
ster Assembly, arguing against John Tombs, the leading 
English Baptist of the seventeenth century, represents 
that rebaptizing is against " the uncontradicted custom 
of all the ancient Church, with whom it was numbered 
among heresies to reiterate a baptism which was acknowl- 
edged to be valid." J 

The validity of Roman Catholic baptism does not de- 
pend upon the worthiness or the piety of the ministry 
of the Church. All Reformed Churches distinguish be- 
tween the ministry of the Roman Catholic Church and 
the papacy. They do not deny that the Roman Catho- 
lic priests are ministers, but they deny that they are 
priests, diocesan bishops, archbishops, or popes. They 
recognize the ministry, but refuse the hierarchy. This 
is admirably represented in an official document of the 
Provincial Assembly of London : 

"We distinguish between a defective ministrie and a false 
ministrie, as we do between a man that is lame or blind and a 
man that is but the picture of a man. We do not deny but that 
the way of ministers entering into the ministrie by the bishops, 
had many defects in it, for which they ought to be humbled : 
but we add, that notwithstanding all the accidental corruptions, 



* xxviii. 7. t Catechism, p. 41. 

X " Defence of Infant Baptism," London, 1646, p. 68. 



184 DEPARTURES. 

yet it is not substantially and essentially corrupted. As it is 
with baptism in the Popish church ; all orthodox divines account 
it valid, though mingled with much dross, because the party 
baptized, is baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy 
Ghost. And therefore when a Papist turns Protestant, he is not 
baptized again, because the substance of baptism is preserved in 
Popery under many defects." * 

(2). The second statement of the Assembly of 1790, is 
that none but a Christian Church can administer or- 
dinances. The Roman Catholic Church is a Church of 
Jesus Christ. This is clear from the Westminster doc- 
trine of the Church. f 

There can be no doubt that the Roman Catholic 
Church is embraced in these definitions. The members 
of the Roman Catholic Church profess the true religion, 
and are not excluded from the ordinary possibility of 
salvation. Those who might venture to put into the 
phrase " true religion " the Protestant faith and order, 
would violate the historic usage of terms, and are debarred 
by the distinction in the definition of the Catholic 
Church between the " more or less pure " churches. 

Those are in error who adduce sections five and six, 
as if they separated the Roman Catholic Church from 
the previous definition. 

There is no evidence that the authors of the Stand- 
ards designed the Roman Catholic Church by the phrase 
" no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan." The 
plural, " church^," is against that opinion. Further- 
more, there is a clear distinction between the Pope of 
Rome and the Roman Catholic Church. He is repre- 
sented as Antichrist exalting himself " z;z the church." 
This clearly implies that the Roman Catholic Church is 



* " Vindication of the Presbyterian Government and Ministry," 1650, p. 143. 
+ xxv. 2-6. 



WHITHER? 185 

a Church. The Pope is the man of sin enthroned in the 
Church in place of Jesus Christ. He is not enthroned 
in Protestant Churches. He is enthroned in the Roman 
Catholic Church alone. That this is the meaning of the 
Standards is clear from an official document of the 
Westminster Assembly itself, in which they reply to the 
Dissenting brethren : 

" If our brethren meane by Antichrist or the man of sinne, that 
which the Reformed Churches have generally understood, name- 
ly, the Papacy, we do not think but that in the great differences 
between them and us, the light already revealed is clear and 
sufficient enough for conviction, and manifesting of the errors 
thereof." * 

The Protestant Reformers and the Westminster di- 
vines were bent upon reforming a corrupt Church, and 
they represented the hierarchy and the errors and abuses 
of the Roman Catholic Church as anti-Christian. But 
the Anabaptists and the later Brownist Separatists with- 
drew from the Catholic Church itself, and denounced 
all the national Churches and their ordinances as anti- 
Christian. Anabaptism, Katabaptism, Rebaptism, (the 
same thing under different names,) was the most charac- 
teristic feature of the radical movement which meant 
deformation and destruction of all the historical 
Churches. 

Lazarus Seaman, a leading Westminster divine, in his 
argument against Edmund Chillendon, in vindication of 
the judgment of the Reformed Churches and Protestant 
divines from misrepresentations concerning ordination 
and laying on of hands, quotes with approval the follow- 
ing extract from Francis Johnson : 

"The Anabaptists holding that Antichrist hath utterly de- 
stroyed all God's ordinances, so as there was not so much as true 

* " Papers for Accomodation," 1644, London, 1648, p. 112. 



186 DEPARTURES. 

baptisme reteined and had among them (/. <?., in Rome or England), 
thereupon they began to baptize themselves again. Whose errors, 
while we confuted, and while some of them objected that we 
should no more retain the baptisme then the ministry there re- 
ceived : we had just occasion thereupon to consider thereof; and 
so weighing with ourselves that one main and speciall reason 
against Rebaptization is, because baptisme is an ordinance of 
God which has had in the Church of Rome before she fell into 
apostasie, and hath been there continued ever since the Apos- 
tle's times (however it be commingled among them with many 
corruptions and inventions of their own), we began to consider 
Whether the like might not be observed and said concerning im- 
position of hands ; that it was had from the Apostles in the 
Church of Rome before her apostasie, and is there continued to 
this day, though mixed with many pollutions and devises of their 
own."* 

Thus far the American Presbyterian Church remained 
in full accord with the Standards, but the General As- 
sembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1835, violated the 
Confession in its deliverance : 

" Resolved, That it is a deliberate and decided judgment of this 
Assembly, that the Roman Catholic Church has essentially apos- 
tatized from the religion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 
and therefore cannot be recognized as a Christian Church."! 

This language is indefensible on historic or constitu- 
tional grounds. And yet it was made in hostility to Ro- 
man Catholic education, and was not designed to apply 
to the question of baptism. 

This General Assembly led the Church in a drift of 
error. The General Assembly of 1845 (p. S.) went so far 
as to declare : 

"That no rite administered by one who is not himself a duly 
ordained minister of the true Church of God visible, can be re- 



* " Vindication of the Judgement of the Reformed Churches," London, 1647, 

P. S3- 

t " Minutes," p. 33. 



WHITHER? 187 

garded as an ordinance of Christ, whatever be the name by 
which it is called, whatever the form employed in its administra- 
tion. The so-called priests of the Romish communion are not 
ministers of Christ, for they are commissioned as agents of the 
papal hierarchy, which is not a church of Christ, but the Man of 
Sin, apostate from the truth, the enemy of righteousness and of 
God. She has lain long under the curse of God, who has called 
his people to come out from her, that they be not partakers of 
her plagues." * 

This General Assembly had the audacity to throw it- 
self athwart the consensus of the Reformed Churches 
and proclaim the heretical doctrine that Roman Cath- 
olic baptism is invalid. But this General Assembly was 
composed of a faction in the Presbyterian Church. Its 
deliverance was an expression of the errors of the men 
who made it. It was happily not a judicial decision, and 
had no binding force in the denomination whose min- 
utes it defiled. It was the work of the same set of men 
who had violated the constitution of the American Pres- 
byterian Church, and by an act of violence had brought 
about the division. They had drifted from the consen- 
sus of the Reformed faith and historic Presbyterianism 
into the principles of Anabaptism and the Brownist separa- 
tion. They were guilty of this violation of the Reformed 
faith and the Presbyterian practice, owing to their igno- 
rance of Presbyterian history, their intense dogmatism and 
devotion to a priori logic, which used the Westminster 
Standards and the sacred Scriptures as a storehouse of 
arguments for foregone conclusions and pre-established 
prejudices. Charles Hodge nobly breasted the tide and 
strove to overcome this error, as well as other errors of 
the men with whom he was compelled by circumstances 
to co-operate, but his appeals to history and reason were 
drowned in the cries of fanaticism and intolerance. 



* "Minutes," p. 35. 



188 DEPARTURES. 

The New School branch of the Presbyterian Church 
never compromised itself with this heresy. The New 
School Presbyterians followed the lead of Henry B. 
Smith, and adhered to the historic faith of the Church. 
Hence it is that the reunited Church was happily re- 
lieved of the burden of the heretical deliverance of 
1845. 

The General Assembly of 1879 endeavored to correct 
the error of 1835 by the following declaration : 

"Resolved, That this Assembly, in full accordance with the 
words of our Confession of Faith respecting the Church of 
Rome and its so-called spiritual head, do now reaffirm the 
deliverance upon this subject of the Assembly of 1835, as 
applying to that Roman hierarchy headed by the Pope, falsely 
claiming to be the Church, which, opposed absolutely and irrecon- 
cilably to the doctrines of Holy Scripture, is corrupting and 
degrading a large part of Christ's Church over which it has 
usurped supreme control." * 

This deliverance is in close conformity with the con- 
stitution and the historic faith of the Presbyterian and 
Reformed Churches. 

The maturest Westminster view of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church is presented in the following careful state- 
ments : 

" There are some amongst us that refuse to hear our ministers 
because they were ordained (as they say) by Antichristian bish- 
ops, and think they are bound in conscience to renounce our 
ministry till we have renounced our ordination. And as the 
Antipaedobaptists would rebaptize all that are baptized among 
us : so the Brownists would reordain all that are ordained 
amongst us. For our parts, we are confident that there is neither 
warrant out of the Word of God for rebaptization nor reordi- 
nation."t . . . . " It hath pleased God out of his infinite wis- 
dom and providence to continue the two great ordinances of 



* "Minutes," p. 630. t "Jus Divinum," 1654, ii., p. 1. 



WHITHER? Ig9 

baptism and ordination sound for the substantiate of them in the 
Church of Rome, even in their greatest apostacy. We deny not 
but they have been exceedingly bemuddled and corrupted, Bap- 
tism, with very many superstitious ceremonies, as of oyl, spittle, 
crossings, etc. ; Ordination, with giving power to the party or- 
dained to make the body of Christ, etc. But yet the substantiate 
have been preserved. Children were baptized with water in 
the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost. And the 
parties ordained had power given them to preach the Word of 
God. Now the Protestant religion doth not teach us to re- 
nounce baptism received in the Church of Rome, neither is a 
Papist, when converted Protestant, rebaptized. Nor doth it teach 
us simply and absolutely to renounce ordination ; but it deals 
with it as the Jewes were to do with a captive maid when they 
had a mind to marrie her. They must shave her head and pare 
her nailes and put the raiment of her captivity from off her, 
and then take her to wife. So doth the Protestant Reformed 
Religion. It distinguisheth between the ordinances of God and 
the corruptions cleaving unto the ordinances. It washeth away 
all the defilements and pollutions contracted in the Church of 
Rome, both from baptism and ordination, but it doth not re- 
nounce either the one or the other." * 

We have presented sufficient evidence to show that the 
Westminster divines regarded Roman Catholic baptism 
as valid ; and that they regarded it as heretical and a 
mark of Anabaptism to deny its validity and to rebaptize. 
We claim that the Westminster Presbyterian divines 
were unanimous in this opinion. The Westminster 
Standards which the Westminster divines framed, can- 
not be made to teach a doctrine which its authors re- 
garded as heretical. How absurd it is for Presbyterians 
to torture the Standards to prove an error which is re- 
pudiated by the unanimous consent of the Reformers 
and the Presbyterian fathers ! What respectable name 
can be produced to offset the authorities which we have 



* " Jus Divinum," 1654, ii., p. 54. 



190 DEPARTURES. 

quoted at the risk of wearying our readers ? It is high 
time that this fanatical opposition to Roman Catholic 
baptism should cease. It is high time that this heretical 
tendency to Anabaptism should be banished from the 
Presbyterian Church. 

THE REAL PRESENCE. 

Dr. Van Dyke has recently called attention to the 
serious departures from the Standards, in the current 
low views of the sacraments in the Presbyterian Church.* 
These contra-confessional opinions are not confined to 
the ordinary ministry and people ; but leading divines, 
such as the late Principal Cunningham, of the Free 
Church of Scotland, and Dr. Dabney, the leading theo- 
logian of the Southern Presbyterian Church, share in 
them. As Dr. Crawford said some years ago : 

" It is much to be regretted that the extreme jealousy that is 
felt among us of anything like the notion of an opus operatum 
in this sacrament should have disposed many to fall into the 
opposite error of well-nigh denying any efficacy to baptism as 
a means of imparting spiritual benefits to those who receive it, 
and of regarding it in no higher light than that of a mere form of 
admission into the visible Church. The prevalence of such low 
views of the efficacy of baptism is one of the greatest obstacles 
in the way of its proving efficacious." t 

It is probable that the most general departure from 
the Westminster doctrine of the sacraments is in the 
lack of faith in the real presence of Christ in the sacra- 
ment of the bread and the wine of the Lord's Supper. 

Dr. Van Dyke correctly says : 

" Dr. Schaff says truly that ' the Zwinglian is the simplest, 
clearest, and most intelligible theory. It removes the super- 



* Presbyterian Review, vol. v., pp. i sea., and vol. vi., pp. 29 sea. 
+ " Fatherhood of God," 2d edition, Edin. 1867, p. 319. 



WHITHER? 291 

natural influence of the ordinance, and presents no obstacle to 
the understanding.' And this is, doubtless, the secret of its prev- 
alence. Rationalism, in the evil sense of the word, is by no 
means confined to Germany ; nor does it win its only triumphs 
in the fields of Theology and Biblical Criticism. Many who de- 
nounce rationalizing in these directions, pursue the same method 
to extremes in their views of the Church and the Sacraments. 
They demand that the potency and the promise of these holy 
ordinances shall be brought down to their comprehension, and 
insist that the theory which takes them out of the category of 
divine mysteries is the true one, because it is so easily under- 
stood. That these views are current to a great extent, even in 
the Presbyterian Church, there is unfortunately little room for 
doubting. Their prevalence is both evidenced and fostered by 
the ecclesiastical phraseology so generally adopted. The first 
participation in the Lord's Supper has become not only contem- 
poraneous, but, in the popular understanding, identical with pro- 
fessing Christ's name and joining the Church. And hence, in the 
apprehension of many, our participation in the Lord's Supper is 
chiefly, if not exclusively, a 'badge of our profession,' and its re- 
peated use is but ' the renewal of our covenant vows.' " * 

The doctrine of the Lord's Supper was in some re- 
spects the most debated of all doctrines, for it not only 
divided Protestants and Romanists, but it also divided 
the Lutheran from the Reformed ; and there were differ- 
ences among the Lutherans and among the Reformed 
themselves. Hence every phase of the doctrine was 
discussed, and the lines were drawn with the utmost 
care, so as to indicate the parts of the doctrine in which 
there was concord, and those parts in which there was 
discord. It is a mark of the rationalizing on this subject 
in the modern Church that there is such a wide-spread 
departure from the common doctrine of the Church and 
those parts of the doctrine in which all were agreed in 
the 17th century. 



* Presbyterian Review, vol. v., p. 8. 



192 DEPARTURES. 

Bishop Davenant tells us : 

" No protestant church can be named which professeth not 
with the Eucharist the true presence of the body and blood of 
Christ, although it acknowledgeth the very manner of the pres- 
ence to be supernatural and plainly divine All Protestant 

Churches are point blank against all erroneous doctrines of the 
bare representation of the body and blood of Christ, parted from 
the true exhibiting of him." * 

It is in keeping with this lack of apprehension of the 
real presence of Christ in the sacrament that there 
should be loose and careless ways of observance. The 
Westminster divines were even ready to break with Par- 
liament and risk everything for the principle of keeping 
unworthy persons from the Lord's table ; but in our 
times not a few ministers give a general invitation to all 
who desire to partake, without any attempt to guard the 
Lord's table from the profane, the ignorant, and the 
scandalous. If there were any apprehension of the 
mystery and the sanctity of the real presence of Christ 
in the sacrament, the ministry and people would be 
more careful in preparing themselves and in inviting 
others. The Master has never given His ministers the 
authority to make indiscriminate invitations. The Pres- 
byterian Directory for Worship tells the minister whom 
he is to invite and also those whom he is to warn away. 

Another sin against the sacrament has become com- 
mon in recent times owing to the movement in favor of 
total abstinence. The Master Himself made bread and 
wine the sacramental elements. The early Protestants 
contended fiercely against the Romanists for withhold- 
ing the wine from the laity, but many modern Protest- 
ants do not hesitate to banish the wine of redemption 
from the communion table, on the plea that it excites to 



* " Exhortation to Brotherly Communion," 1641, p. 129. 



WHITHER? 193 

intemperance. It would be lawful, for a man who could 
be tempted to intemperance at the Lord's table, to ab- 
stain from the cup. But it is not lawful to deprive all 
others of the cup of blessing on his account. And it is 
contrary to the Scriptures and the constitution of the 
Presbyterian Church, it is a reflection upon the wisdom 
and grace of our Lord, and it is altogether disorderly to 
substitute any drink whatever for the wine, which our 
divine Saviour Himself invites us to drink at His table 
as the pledge of His redeeming love. 

It is refreshing to turn away from the low and mean 
views of the Lord's Supper that prevail among recent 
Protestants to the noble words of Dr. A. A. Hodge : 

" It does not do to say that this presence is only spiritual, be- 
cause that phrase is ambiguous. If it means that the presence 
of Christ is not something objective to us, but simply a mental 
apprehension or idea of him subjectively present to our con- 
sciousness, then the phrase is false. Christ as an objective fact 
is as really present and active in the sacrament as are the bread 
and wine or the minister or our fellow-communicants by our 
side. If it means that Christ is present only as he is represented 
by the Holy Ghost, it is not wholly true, because Christ is one 
Person and the Holy Ghost another, and it is Christ who is per- 
sonally present. The Holy Ghost doubtless is coactive in that 
presence and in all Christ's mediatorial work, but this leads into 
depths beyond our possible understanding. It does not do to 
say that the divinity of Christ is present while his humanity is 
absent, because it is the entire indivisible divine-human Person 
of Christ which is present." * 

We have seen that the Presbyterian Church has de- 
parted from the nine chapters of the Confession, consid- 
ered in the present chapter, into serious errors. In the 
whole realm of doctrine and practice, contra-confessional 
views, that strike at essential and necessary articles and 



* " Popular Lectures," pp. 40&-9. 



194 DEPARTURES. 

destroy the Westminster system, are either entertained 
by large numbers of our ministry and people, or else are 
allowed to remain unchallenged by the orthodox, and 
are tolerated as if they were errors of small importance. 
Such a state of affairs could not have existed in the 16th 
and 17th centuries. Differences of far less importance 
resulted in strife, separation, and the organization of the 
existing denominations. In fact the strife in former 
generations was chiefly here. If the doctrines of the 
Church and the sacraments are of so little importance, 
and such differences as those mentioned can be rightly 
overlooked in the Presbyterian Church, why should we 
any longer perpetuate those different denominations that 
were established for the express purpose of giving lib- 
erty and advocacy to these different theories of the 
Church and the sacraments ? 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Perplexities. 

The Confession of Faith concludes with two chapters 
upon Eschatology, embracing the state of man after 
death, the resurrection of the dead, and the last judg- 
ment. Here is one of the chief battle-grounds in the 
theology of the day. It is interesting, and at the same 
time distressing, to observe that all the faults of Tradi- 
tionalism converge at this point. Here we find extra- 
confessional errors, infra-confessional errors, and contra- 
confessional errors ; and the entire Church is in a condi- 
tion of great perplexity. 

JUDGMENT AT DEATH. 

The chief extra-confessional error is the doctrine of a 
private judgment at death. This doctrine is taught by 
the majority of the dogmatic divines and the ministry 
who depend upon them. And yet there is not a word 
of it in the Westminster Confession or Catechisms, or in 
any Creed of the Church, or in any of the writings of the 
Word of God. It originated from the ethnic religions 
that know of no ultimate judgment and no primitive 
judgment in Eden. These religions needed the judg- 
ment at death to determine the rewards and punish- 
ments incurred by men in this life. The doctrine was 
retained in a semi-Pelagian Church, which had no proper 
conception of the guilt of original sin, and which made 
much of the debit and credit account of human actions. 

(195) 



^96 PERPLEXITIES. 

It was revived by Protestant dogmatic divines in the in- 
terest of determining the fate of men immediately after 
death, without regard to the doctrine of the middle 
state. 

This doctrine of a private judgment at death works 
mischief in several directions : 

(a). It cramps the doctrine of the primitive judgment 
of our race in Eden, robs that divine act of its meaning, 
and imperils the doctrine of original sin. The Larger 
Catechism teaches that 

" the fall brought upon mankind the loss of communion with 
God, his displeasure and curse ; so as we are by nature children 
of wrath, bond-slaves to Satan, and justly liable to all punish- 
ments in this world and that which is to come." * 

According to this statement the race of man is a con- 
demned race. By an act of divine judgment all men 
are born into this world in a state of punishment cul- 
minating in death, which then introduces them to an- 
other state of punishment in the world to come. There 
is no room here for a judgment at death, a pretended 
judgment that grants no new trial, and that makes no 
change whatever in the original sentence. 

(b). All men remain in the state of condemnation and 
punishment until they are removed from it by divine 
grace and translated into a state of redemption. They 
are justified freely by divine grace so soon as they believe 
in Christ and they are no longer under condemnation. 

What can a private judgment at death do for a man 
who is already justified? Is he to be justified over 
again ? Is he to have a higher grade of justification ? 
He, of whom Christ said, " He cometh not into judg- 
ment, but hath passed out of death into life," f has noth- 

* Q. 27. t John v. 24. 



WHITHER? 197 

ing to gain or to lose by such a judgment. A justified 
man ought to have no fear of death. If it introduces 
him into the presence of his loving Father and Re- 
deemer, he will look forward to it with joy. This false 
doctrine, that he must at once after death appear before 
the supreme tribunal and stand the test of a judgment 
upon which his everlasting future will depend, makes 
the bravest and the holiest shrink from death. 

(c). There is no place in the order of salvation for a 
private judgment at death. There can be none for the 
sinner or saint in accordance with the Calvinistic scheme. 
An Arminian may look forward to a judgment at death, 
because he underrates the guilt of original sin and makes 
man's salvation dependent upon his use of his probation 
in this world. The private judgment at death decides 
the issues of this probation. Man's salvation is uncer- 
tain until this judgment has been pronounced. The 
doctrine that this life is a probation and that there is a 
private judgment at death are inseparable. Both are 
Arminian, and neither can be reconciled with Calvinistic 
principles. 

(d). The doctrine of a private judgment at death ob- 
trudes itself in place of the public judgment of the day 
of doom, renders it unnecessary, and strips it of its im- 
portance. Dr. Shedd says : 

" The private judgment at death and the public judgment at 
the last day coincide, because in the intermediate state there is 
no alteration of moral character, and consequently no alteration 
of the sentence passed at death." * 

The Scriptures and the creeds agree in holding up 
the public judgment as the crisis that determines the 
everlasting destiny of mankind. If our eternal weal 



* Shedd, " Dogmatic Theology," vol. ii., p. 660. Chas. Scribner's Sons. 



198 PERPLEXITIES. 

or woe is to be determined by a private judgment at 
death the ultimate public judgment is reduced to a mere 
ceremony, confirming in public the judgment that had 
been privately given to the sinner centuries and possibly 
millenniums before. 

" Not only would nothing of essential importance remain for 
the judgment, if every one entered the place of his eternal destiny 
directly after death ; but in that case, also, no room would be left 
for a progress of believers, who, however, are not yet sinless at 
the moment of death. If they are conceived as holy directly 
after death, sanctification would be effected by the separation 
from the body ; the seat, therefore, of evil must be found in the 
body, and sanctification would be realized through a mere suffer- 
ing, namely, of death in a physical process, instead of through 
the will. Moreover, the absoluteness of Christianity demands 
that no one be judged before Christianity has been made accessi- 
ble and brought near to him. But that is not the case in this life 
with millions of human beings. Nay, even within the church 
there are periods and circles where the Gospel does not really 
approach men as that which it is. Moreover, those dying in child- 
hood have not been able to decide personally for Christianity." * 

The public judgment is at the completion of the era 
of grace. It presupposes the accomplishment of the en- 
tire order of redemption for all the elect. It is a judg- 
ment pronounced by the Redeemer on the basis of His 
work of redemption, and in view of its completion. It 
is the culmination of the Messianic kingdom ; the tri- 
umph of the Lamb in His saints and over every foe. 
The private judgment at death would be premature. It 
would be in the midst of the process of redemption for 
the individual and for the world. It would presuppose 
all the processes of grace until the day of judgment. It 
would assign the rewards and penalties centuries before 
they were earned. Indeed this doctrine of a private 

* " Dorner on the Future State," pp. ioo-i. Chas. Scribner's Sons, N. Y., 
1883. 



WHITHER? 199 

judgment at death is impossible to any one who believes 
that there will be growth in grace or in sin in the mid- 
dle state. It is connected with narrow views of the 
work of the Redeemer and His work of redemption. It 
is associated with an undue emphasis upon the imputed 
righteousness of Christ and a neglect of the doctrine of 
the transformation of the Christian into the likeness of 
Christ by the impartation of His righteousness. The 
Confession and the Scriptures teach that the judgment 
after death will be a judgment according to works and 
character. Men are justified by the imputed righteous- 
ness of Christ when they accept Him as their Saviour. 
In the day of judgment they will be justified by the 
righteousness of Christ that has been imparted to them, 
that has transformed them and that has made them 
righteous as Christ their Redeemer is righteous. Dr. 
A. A. Hodge gives expression to a common error when 
he says : 

" All mankind will then be judged by Christ in person, and be- 
lievers justified on the ground of imputed righteousness and 
unbelievers condemned for their own sins." * 

Such an ultimate justification does not advance be- 
yond the justification of believers at the moment they 
believe. It ignores the whole process of sanctification ; 
it takes no account of the infusion of the righteousness 
of Christ and of His transforming grace in sanctification. 
It gives me great pleasure to endorse the excellent re- 
marks of the premillenarian, Dr. Brookes, here, with 
regard to sanctification at death : 

" Post-millennialists invariably t make it " (sanctification) " end 



* " Presbyterian Doctrine," p. 31. 

t This is not true, for there are not a few Post-millennialists who agree with 
Dr. Brookes here. 



200 PERPLEXITIES. 

at death, and thus turn our attention to that which is the curse, 
the consequence and the conquest of sin, to the clammy sweat, 
the glazing eye, the labored breathing, the coffin, the grave, the 
worm and corruption, as the goal to which the Holy Spirit's dis- 
cipline and teachings conduct the believer. It is needless to say 
that no such view is presented in Scripture. There, a far higher 
and nobler object is set before us : 'To the end He may stablish 
your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, 
at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints ' (i 
Thess. iii. 13) ; ' And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly ; 
and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved 
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ' (1 Thess. 
v. 23) ; 'And now, little children, abide in Him ; that when He 
shall appear, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before 
Him at His coming ' (1 John ii. 28). This, and not death, is the 
appropriate and glorious termination of our growth in grace, and 
in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." * 

The righteousness of Christ is imputed in order that it 
may be imparted to the entire body of His redeemed. 
When the judgment sounds, the mediatorial kingdom 
of glory will shine forth. Then we may be assured that 
the Redeemer will rejoice in a completed work. His 
elect will not merely be justified and clothed with im- 
puted righteousness ; they will be sanctified and adorned 
with a righteousness of their own, complete and perfect, 
reflecting the righteousness and glory of their Lord ; for 
His bride will be a glorious church, " not having spot or 
wrinkle or any such thing "; " holy and without blemish." 

THE MILLENNIUM. 

The current doctrine of a millennium in the future 
before the advent of Christ is another extra-confessional 
doctrine for which there is no basis in the Westminster 
Standards. The Westminster divines as a body held to 



* " Premillennial Essays," p. 304. Chicago : Revell, publisher, 1879. 



WHITHER? 201 

the ancient orthodox view of the Christian Church, that 
the millennium corresponds in whole or in part with the 
age of the Christian Church as the kingdom of the Mes- 
siah on earth. There was great difference of opinion 
with regard to the beginning of the millennium, whether 
at the first advent of Christ, at His resurrection, on the 
day of Pentecost, at the destruction of Jerusalem, or at 
the conversion of the Roman empire. There was dif- 
ference of opinion as to its duration, whether the thou- 
sand years were exactly a thousand years or a symboli- 
cal number for an extended period. Accordingly some 
thought the millennium was past, others that it still 
continued. There can be no doubt that these views pre- 
vailed in the Westminster Assembly and gave shape to 
its definitions. Hence there is no mention of the mil- 
lennium. There is no room for it in the chapters on Escha- 
tology. The Standards express the faith of the universal 
catholic Church in looking forward to the advent of 
Christ for the judgment of the risen world as imminent. 
It is true that a considerable number of the Westminster 
divines looked forward to a more glorious condition of 
the Church on earth prior to the advent of Jesus Christ, 
but only a few of these identified those times with the 
millennium. The current doctrine is one for which 
Daniel Whitby, the Arminian, and the great revival of 
Methodism are chiefly responsible. 

All those who hoped for the golden age of the Church 
in the future were called Chiliasts or Millenaries. The 
Anabaptists of the Reformation were Premillenarians. 
All the Reformers except Francis Lambert agreed with 
the Roman Catholic Church that the millennium was 
either past or still present. Francis Lambert, however,* 



* " Commentary in Apoc," Marburg, 1528, p. 283. 



202 PERPLEXITIES. 

while he rejected Premillenarianism as an " execrable 
error," held that Jesus Christ will reign over the whole 
world in a spiritual manner, all sects will be annihilated, 
Antichrist will be destroyed, Israel will be converted, 
and there will be one holy Christian Church in the 
world. This view was adopted by many subsequent 
Protestant divines on the Continent and in Great Brit- 
ain, some connecting it with the millennium and some 
holding it apart from the millennium. The most influ- 
ential of these were Gallus of Leiden,* who made the 
millennium the period between 15 19 and the advent of 
Christ to judgment at the end of the world ; Piscator of 
Herborn,f who taught that the martyrs would rise to 
reign with Christ in heaven, while upon earth the Church 
would enjoy felicity and security during the millennium, 
after the fall of Antichrist ; Alsted, \ who taught a bodily 
resurrection of the martyrs to live in this world during 
the millennium, but held that Christ will reign visibly in 
heaven but invisibly on earth, His visible kingdom being 
resigned to the risen martyrs. Thomas Brightman first 
introduced these views into Great Britain in his " Com- 
mentary on the Apocalypse." § He makes two millen- 
niums, the first from Constantine till 1300, when he finds 
the resurrection of the martyrs in Wiclif and his asso- 
ciates, and then a second millennium from 1300 to 2300. 
This is followed by the conversion of the Jews and the 
glorious condition of the combined Jewish and Gentile 
Churches on earth described in Rev. xxi. and xxii. In 
162 1, Henry Finch wrote a book entitled " The Calling 
of the Jews," which was published for him by William 



* " Clavis Prophetica," Leiden, 1592, p. 26. 

+ " Comment, on New Test., 1597, on Rev. xx." 

\ " Beloved City," p. 17, London, 1643. 

§ Frankfurt, 1609 ; Heidelberg, 1612 ; Amsterdam, 1615 ; Leiden, 1616. 



WHITHER? 203 

Gouge. He follows Brightman, referring Rev. xxi. and 
xxii. to the restored Jewish Church. This doctrine of 
the conversion of the Jews and of a more glorious con- 
dition of the Church in connection therewith, seems to 
have laid strong hold upon many of the Westminster 
divines. William Gouge, one of the leaders of the As- 
sembly, especially in the work on the Confession, cer- 
tainly held this opinion and carefully distinguishes it 
from Premillenarianism, as is clear from the following 
extract : 

" There are more particular promises concerning a future glory 
of the Christian Church, set down by the prophets in the Old 
Testament, and by Christ and his disciples in the New, especially 
in the book of the Revelation, then we have either heard of or 
seen in our dayes to be accomplished. The glorious city de- 
scribed. Rev. xxi. 10, etc., is by many judicious divines taken 
for a type of a spiritual, glorious estate of the Church of Christ 
under the gospel yet to come, and that before his last coming to 
judgment. I passe by all conceits of our later Chiliasts or Mil- 
lenaries (whom in English we may call thousandaries) who ima- 
gine that Christ shall personally come down from heaven, in that 
nature in which after his resurrection he ascended into heaven, 
and reign here a thousand years with his saints. The certainty 
of this I leave to be proved by them who are the broaches thereof. 
But this is most certain, that there are yet better things to come 
than have been since the first calling of the gentiles. Among 
other better things to come, the recalling of the Jews is most 
clearly and plentifully foretold by the prophets." * 

Stephen Marshall, the great preacher,f Herbert Pal- 
mer,;); the chairman of the Committee on the Catechism, 
and Antony Tuckney, his successor, with many others, 

* " Sermon before the house of Peers, — • The progresse of divine Providence,' " 
p. 29, 24 Sept., 1645. 

t " Common's Sermon," June 15, 1643. " Lord's Sermon," Oct. 28, 1646, 
P-I3- 

X " Common's Sermon," June 28, 1643, p. 64. 



204 PERPLEXITIES. 

held this opinion without attaching it to the millennium. 
Marshall calls it " the glorious times which Christ hath 
promised and the Church long looked for." Palmer 
calls it " a most glorious and blessed Reformation," and 
Tuckney carefully distinguishes it from Premillenarian- 
ism.* He maintains that we are not to expect a per. 
sonal reign of Christ on earth : 

" We according to the Scriptures rejoice in the first advent, in 
the Incarnation, the second we expect in the last day, but a third 
intermediate one we do not acknowledge. Hebrews ix. 26-28 
we read that Christ appeared once to do away with sin and that 
he is to appear again without sin ; but a third neither there nor 
anywhere do we read. We read indeed of that illustrious pha- 
nerosis, epiphaneia, parousia, apokalupsis of our Lord, but every- 
where of that as it were unique event when heaven and earth 
will be dissolved, II. Peter iii. 10. There will be an end of all 
things, I. Cor. xv. 24, which by their opinion are not to be until 
after the millennium ; when all shall be judged, Matth. xxv. 31, 
II. Tim. iv ; all the saints shall be gathered to Christ, II. Thess. 
ii. 1 ; be ever with him, I. Thess. iv. 17, John xiv. 3 ; and enjoy the 
beatific vision of God, I. John iii. 2 ; which accord with the last 
day and not with their millennium." 

After thus opposing the Premillennial advent, he 
asserts as strongly as Gouge, Marshall, and Palmer the 
hope of the more glorious age of the Church : 

" That Antichrist, that is to say, the Roman is to be destroyed, 
I no-wise doubt. That there will be an illustrious conversion of 
the Jews, if not of all, at least of a great many and far more than 
ever has been, I firmly believe. Until this most splendid dawn 
shall shine forth, that a gloomy night is to overshadow the 
church, soon to come, I fear, and immediately before the rising 
of the sun, most dark, I greatly fear. But that sun having at 
length arisen, I seem to myself to see a most splendid day to come, 
abounding to the utmost with joy and at the same time external 



* " Praelectiones Theologies," Amst., 1679, PP- l8 5. 2 4 2 - 



WHITHER? 205 

peace. This the Apocalypse seems to me darkly though with 
sufficient evidence to reveal." 

These extracts explain Robert Baylie's statement in 
his letter to William Spang, September 5, 1645, that 
"The most of the chief divines here, not only Independ- 
ents, but others, such as Twisse, Marshall, and Palmer, 
and many more, are express Chiliasts." They were 
Chiliasts in the generic sense, embracing all those who 
looked forward to the golden age of the Church ; but 
Gouge, Marshall, Palmer, Tuckney, and other chief 
divines were not Premillenarians. Baylie here classes 
Twisse with Marshall and Palmer, just as elsewhere* he 
classes together as Chiliasts, Piscator, Alsted, Mede, 
Archer, Thomas Goodwin, and Burroughs, and then 
separating the three last named, charges them with " set- 
ting up the whole fabric of Chiliasm." 

These extracts also explain the exposition of the 
second petition of the Lord's Prayer in the Larger 
Catechism for which Antony Tuckney was chiefly 
responsible. " We pray that the kingdom of sin and 
Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated through- 
out the world, the Jews called, the fulness of the Gen- 
tiles brought in "; all which expresses the hope of these 
divines in a more glorious condition of the Church, and 
this without any idea of a millennium, and entirely con- 
sistent with the prayer " that Christ would rule in our 
hearts here, and hasten the time of his second coming, 
and ' our reigning with him forever.' " f 

It is clear, then, that the Westminster divines left the 
future millennium altogether out of the Standards, and 
that there is no room for it in their definitions. Those 



* " Dissuasive from the Errours of the Time," London, 1645, cap. xi. 
t Question 191. 



206 PERPLEXITIES. 

who hold to this opinion entertain an extra-confessional 
doctrine. I entirely agree with these Westminster di- 
vines. Gouge, Marshall, Palmer, and Tuckney express 
my views exactly. They give just that improvement in 
the ancient church doctrine that was needed. They stop 
just where they ought to stop. But when recent Presby- 
terian divines go further, and adopt the scheme of the 
Arminian, Whitby, they take a position which suits 
quite well with evangelical Methodism, but which is not 
in accord with Calvinism. They moreover go against the 
Scriptures, which do not recognize any such future mil- 
lennium as this theory professes. 

The doctrine of a future millennium is not so innocent 
as it appears to be on the surface. It changes the faith 
of the Church in the imminency of the second advent of 
Christ. It makes the millennium the great hope of the 
future instead of the presence of the Redeemer Himself. 
The Messiah is the great hope of the Church, the 
supreme object of our longing and striving, the bride- 
groom for whose presence the affianced bride prays and 
agonizes. But the current theology pushes the Messiah 
behind the millennium, and fixes the hope of men upon 
an illusion and a delusion of human conceit and folly. 

THE MIDDLE STATE. 

Among infra-confessional errors the most serious is the 
neglect of the doctrine of the Middle State. The Con- 
fession of Faith and the Catechisms are meagre enough 
here. The Westminster divines were themselves in the 
drift of antagonism to the Roman Catholic doctrine of 
purgatory. They did not distinguish between the doc- 
trine of the middle state in the ancient Catholic Church 
and the perversion of it in the Roman Catholic doc- 
trine. They threw away purgatory without substituting 



WHITHER? 207 

anything in its place. They distinguish the middle 
state between death and the resurrection, but they prac- 
tically made no other distinction than the absence of 
the body in the former and its presence in the latter. 
They even go so far as to use the terms Heaven and 
Hell indiscriminately for both states. The Westminster 
doctrine of the middle state finds fullest expression in 
the Larger Catechism. Three states after death are 
distinguished. "The communion in glory, which the 
members of the invisible church have with Christ, is in 
this life, immediately after death, and at last perfected 
at the resurrection and day of judgment."* 

The state immediately after death is thus defined : 

" The communion in glory with Christ, which the members of 
the invisible church enjoy immediately after death, is in that 
their souls are then made perfect in holiness, and received into 
the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light 
and glory ; waiting for the full redemption of their bodies, which 
even in death continue united to Christ, and rest in their graves 
as in their beds, till at the last day they be again united to their 
souls. Whereas the souls of the wicked are at their death cast 
into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness ; and 
their bodies kept in their graves, as in their prisons, until the 
resurrection and judgment of the great day." \ 

This statement ascribes to the redeemed holiness and 
blessedness in heaven with God and Christ, and to the 
unredeemed a wretched abode in the prison of hell 
until the judgment, both classes in a disembodied con- 
dition. What is affirmed in these statements is affirmed 
of the state immediately after death and not of the 
moment of time immediately after death. The Confes- 
sion does not affirm that all these blessings are enjoyed 
by the righteous immediately when they die, but in the 

* Q. 82. t Q. 86. 



208 PERPLEXITIES. • 

state immediately after death. It does not affirm that 
there is no change in the condition of the righteous in 
heaven, or of the imprisoned souls in hell during the 
middle state. The statements apply to the whole 
period of the middle state and not to the moment of 
time that begins it. The Confession teaches that all the 
blessedness and misery of the middle state are prepara- 
tory to the judgment which first assigns all mankind to 
their ultimate conditions. Those who recognize no 
change of condition in the middle state virtually make 
it a blank and little better than sleep, unconsciousness, 
or death. The Confession teaches that the state is a 
state of intense activity in the presence of God on the part 
of the righteous, involving growth in holiness and blessed- 
ness. It teaches confinement of the wicked in prisons in 
torment, involving the experience of suffering and an- 
guish. If these sufferings are not remedial they must be 
detrimental and involve increase of sin, guilt, and torment. 
Dr. A. A. Hodge deserves great credit for his efforts 
to regain ground in the doctrine of the middle state. 
I agree with him in his denunciation of those who would 
mutilate the Apostles' Creed by striking out the clause 
" He descended into Hell." I assent to his statement that 

" This creed as it stands is a part of the binding standards of 
our Church, to which every minister and elder solemnly sub- 
scribes, and it is, after the Scriptures, the most ancient, vener- 
able and generally recognized of all the historic literary monu- 
ments of the Christian Church. It seems to me a dreadful 
violation of the bonds which connect us with the history of 
Christian faith and life, and of the common ties which still con- 
nect the divided segments of ' the body of Christ ' for any one 
branch of that Church to agitate for the mutilation of the ven- 
erable creed which belongs to the whole brotherhood and to all 
the sacred past as well." * 

* " Popular Lectures," p. 431. 



whither? 209 

I very much regret that my beloved colleague, Dr. 
Shedd, is guilty of this error. His reference to the 
clause of the Apostles' Creed, " He descended into Hell," 
as " the spurious clause"; and his statement that "it 
required the development of the doctrine of purgatory, 
and of the mediaeval eschatology generally, in order to 
get it formally into the doctrinal system of both the 
Eastern and Western churches," * are both of them un- 
historical. There are few doctrines that can claim such 
common patristic consent as this doctrine, and it is at 
the basis of ancient and mediaeval eschatology and not 
a later development out of it. 

Those who endeavor to commit this sin against the 
historic Church do it in the interest of an attempt to 
get rid of the doctrine of the middle state, which is 
based upon the descent of Jesus into the abode of the 
dead. 

Dr. Hodge is also worthy of all praise for his state- 
ment that 

"there is something incomparably higher and more complete to 
look forward to — when all the redeemed shall pass forever from 
under the power of death, and each entire person, instinct with life 
and glorified, shall be completely conformed to the likeness of 
his Lord and adjusted to his environment in the new heavens 
and the new earth." t 

But Dr. Hodge is incautious when he says that 

"the intermediate state is a condition of death. The spirits of 
men, while their bodies remain in their graves, are ghosts or 
disembodied souls. The condition of even the redeemed dead, 
although completely delivered from sin and at home with the 
Lord, is one in which they are not yet completely delivered from 
all the consequences of sin." J 



* " Dogmatic Theology," pp. 603, 607. f " Popular Lectures," p. 426. 

% Pages 424-5. 



210 PERPLEXITIES. 

Dr. Hodge recognizes the difference between the 
middle and the ultimate states, but he does not appre- 
hend the importance of the middle state as a period of 
intermediate development and preparation for the final 
state. This is due to his doctrine of immediate sancti- 
fication at death,* which is not designed by the West- 
minster divines when they say that in the state imme- 
diately after death we are made perfect in holiness. 
They had no design of contradicting their doctrine of 
progressive sanctification. If Dr. Hodge had retained 
the doctrine of progressive sanctification and had recog- 
nized that it went on during the middle state he would 
never have recognized the middle state as a condition 
of death. The middle state is the great state of sanc- 
tification for believers and of degradation for unbe- 
lievers. 

" As for the pious, intercourse with the ungodly, to which they 
were subject on earth, ceases after death ; they suffer nothing 
more from them, not even temptation. The connection of be- 
lievers with Christ is so intimate that death and Hades have no 
power over it. On the contrary death brings them an increase 
of freedom from temptations and disturbances, as well as of 
blessedness. For believers there is no more punishment, but 
there is growth, a further laying aside of defects, an invigoration 
through the greater nearness of the Lord which they may ex- 
perience, and through the more lively hope of their consumma- 
tion." . . . . " In this life the realities of the sensuous world 
are the objects of sight, the spiritual world is the object of 
faith. Then, when the physical side is wanting to the spirit, 
these poles will be reversed. To the departed spirits the 
spiritual world whether in good or evil, will appear to be the 
real existence resting on immediate evidence. Since, then, such 
internal soul-life unveils the ground of the soul more openly, 
the retiring into self has for believers the effect of purifying and 
educating. It serves to obliterate all stains, to harmonize the 

* See p. 147. 



WHITHER? 211 

whole inner being, in keeping with the good disposition brought 
over from the other life or later acquired; thus there will be for 
them no idle waiting for the judgment but a progressing in knowl- 
edge, blessedness, and holiness, in communion with Christ and 
the heavenly company." 

" But in regard to those who died unbelieving, or not yet be- 
lieving, to them also the ground of their souls is laid bare ; 
hence also their impurity, their discord, and alienation from 
God, is unveiled." . ..." If, instead of repenting and being 
converted, instead of growing in self-knowledge and knowledge 
of God as holy, and yet gracious in Christ, they prefer to con- 
tinue in evil ; then the form of their sin becomes more spiritual, 
more demoniacal, in accordance with their state from which this 
world recedes farther and farther, and thus it ripens for the 
judgment."* 

Lest any one should stumble at these excellent 
thoughts owing to the name of Dorner, I shall conclude 
with the wise words of John Wesley : 

" I cannot therefore but think that all those who are with the 
rich man in the unhappy division of hades will remain there, 
howling and blaspheming, cursing and looking upwards, till they 
are cast into ' the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his 
angels.' And on the other hand, can we reasonably doubt but 
that those who are now in paradise in Abraham's bosom, all 
those holy souls who have been discharged from the body from 
the beginning of the world unto this day, will be continually ri- 
pening for heaven, will be perpetually holier and happier, till 
they are received into the ' kingdom prepared for them from the 
foundation of the world.' "t 

PREMILLENARIANISM. 

There are several contra-confessional errors now prev- 
alent in the Presbyterian Church in the department of 
Eschatology. A group of these is associated with the 
term Premillenarianism. These errors are : 



* Dorner, " Future State," pp. 106-8. 
t "Works," cxxvi., sermon " On Faith." 



212 PERPLEXITIES. 

(i). There is a resurrection of the bodies of the saints 
at the beginning of the millennium, but the resurrection 
of the wicked is postponed until after the millennium. 
This is against the Larger Catechism, which teaches 
" that the bodies of believers rest in their graves as in 
their beds, till at the last day they be again united to 
their souls." * " We are to believe that at the last day, 
there shall be a general resurrection of the dead, both of 
the just and unjust." f 

(2). The second advent of Jesus Christ introduces the 
millennium, and there is to be a third advent at the day 
of judgment. This is against the Larger Catechism, 
which teaches that 

" Christ is to be exalted in his coming again to judge the world, 
in that he, who was unjustly judged and condemned by wicked 
men, shall come again at the last day in great power, and in the 
full manifestation of his own glory, and of his Father's, with all 
his holy angels, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, 
and with the trumpet of God, to judge the world in righteous- 
ness." J 

(3). There are two judgments : one at the beginning 
of the millennium, and another after the last conflict 
that follows the millennium. This is against the Con- 
fession, which teaches that 

"God hath appointed a day, wherein he will judge the world in 
righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment 
is given of the Father. In which day, not only the apostate an- 
gels shall be judged ; but likewise all persons, that have lived upon 
earth, shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an ac- 
count of their thoughts, words, and deeds ; and to receive ac- 
cording to what they have done in the body, whether good or 
evil." § 

Thus Premillenarianism presents an entirely different 
scheme and order of events in the doctrine of Last 



Q. 86. t Q. 87. % Q. 56. § Chap, xxxiii. 



WHITHER? 213 

Things from that taught in the Westminster Standards, 
teaching two future advents, two resurrections, and two 
judgments, and fixing the attention of men upon the 
first advent to establish the millennium, instead of the 
advent at the last day to determine the everlasting future 
of all men and of angels. The Premillenarians en- 
deavor to establish their right to hold their opinions in 
the Presbyterian Church by laying stress upon the West- 
minster doctrine of the imminency of the advent, 
which those who hold the current views of the millen- 
nium cannot do. The alternative is not between these 
two doctrines. They forget the orthodox doctrine of 
the millennium, which was held by the Westminster 
divines in common with the Reformers and the ancient 
and mediaeval Church. They also seek to find Premil- 
lenarians among the Westminster divines on the basis 
of Baylie's statement that the chief English divines 
were Chiliasts. This we have already explained by 
showing that Baylie used Chiliast as a generic term, and 
he did not mean thereby Premillenarian.** There were 
several Premillenarians in the Westminster Assembly. 
The chief of these were Thomas Goodwin and Jer. Bur- 
roughs, the Independents. Twisse, the first prolocutor, 
also seems to have inclined to a moderate Premillena- 
rianism, but he had not committed himself to it in any 
public manner. Besides these, Francis Woodcock is the 
only one who was certainly a Premillenarian. Twisse 
and Burroughs died before the doctrinal standards were 
composed. Goodwin was influential among the outside 
Independents, but he was out of harmony with the 
Westminster divines in many questions of Church gov- 
ernment and doctrine, and had little influence in the 

* See p. 205. 



214 PERPLEXITIES. 

composition of the Westminster Standards. On the 
other hand, Premillenarianism was strongly urged by a 
number of able writers of the time, and the Westmin- 
ster divines were compelled to take issue with them. 
The chief of these were John Archer,* a former asso- 
ciate of Goodwin at Arnheim ; Robert Manton,f Na- 
thaniel Homes,;): and William Aspinwall.§ 
. The Confession of Faith of the seven Baptist Churches 
issued in 1645-6, gave expression to Premillenarianism, 
and it became the special doctrine of the English Bap- 
tists and the Fifth-monarchy men. Thomas Bakewell,|| 
Alexander Petrie,!" Robert Baylie,** Ephraim Paget,ff 
Thomas Edwards,^ Edward Featley,§§ Alex. Ross,|[ 
and others sharply attacked Premillenarianism as heresy. 
I shall give a few specimens of renunciation of this error 
by the Westminster divines. 

Henry Wilkinson says : " Christ shall reign (though I 
cannot understand personally on earth, yet) I believe 
eternally in the heavens." ° Rutherford says : " I mean 
not any such visible reign of Christ on earth as the mil- 
lenaries fancy." °° Joseph Caryl says: "I assert not his 



* "Personal Reign of Christ on Earth," 1642; "Zion's Joy in her King," 
1643. 
t " Israel's Redemption," 1642 ; " Israel's Redemption, redeemed," 1646. 
X " Resurrection Revealed," 1653. 
§ " Brief Description of the Fifth Monarchy," 1653. 
I " Saints' Inheritance," 1643 ; " Confutation of Divers Errors," 1646. 
U "Chiliomastic," 1644. 

** " Dissuasive from the Errours of the Time," 1645. 
ft " Description of the Hereticks and Sectaries of these latter Times," 1645. 
X% " Gangraena," 1646. §§ " Dippers Dipt," 6th edition, 1651. 

|J " View of All Religions," xii. 9, 2d edition, 1655. 
" Two Treatises," p. 97. 
00 "Common's Sermon," Jan. 31, '43, p. 56. 



WHITHER ? 



215 



opinion about the personal reign of Christ." And Geo. 
Gillespie says : 

" That which I have said from grounds of Scripture concerning 
a more glorious, yea, a more peacable condition of the Church to 
be yet looked for, is acknowledged by some of our sound and 
learned writers who have had occasion to express their judgment 
about it and it hath no affinity with the opinion of an earthly or 
temporal kingdom of Christ, or of Jesus' building again of Jeru- 
salem and the material temple, and then obtaining a dominion 
above all other nations and the like." * 

We have already cited Gouge and Tuckney.f We 
might also cite Gower, Lightfoot, Gataker, Seaman, and 
others. And I challenge any one to produce an extract 
from any Presbyterian member of the Westminster As- 
sembly save Twisse and Woodcock that will indicate 
even such a mild type of Premillenarianism as these two 
divines seem to have entertained. In the meanwhile we 
may refer to two official utterances that seem to deter- 
mine the question. The Westminster divines in their 
Revision of the XXXIX Articles seem to have de- 
signed to rule out an advent of Christ to the earth prior 
to the ultimate judgment. We shall place in their midst 
the statement of the Irish Articles that influenced the 
Westminster divines more than any others : 



THE XXXIX ART. 



And there sitteth 
until he return to 
judge all men at the 
last day. 



IRISH ARTICLES. 

And there sitteth 
at the right hand of 
the Father until he 
return to judge all 
men at the last day. 



WESTMIN. REVISION. 

And there sitteth 
until he return to 
judge all men at the 
general resurrection 
of the body at the 
last day. 



* M Common's Sermon," March 27, '44. 



t See pp. 203-204. 



216 PERPLEXITIES. 

The general resurrection of the body at the last day 
excludes the prior resurrection of the saints at the be- 
ginning of a millennium. The remaining of Christ in 
heaven until the general resurrection excludes, His ad- 
vent to earth at the beginning of the millennium. 

The Provincial Assembly of London, embracing all 
the Westminster divines having positions in London, as 
well as all the Presbyterian ministers of the city, in their 
official jus divinum signed by moderator and clerks, but 
composed chiefly by Edmund Calamy, and designed to be 
the official reply of the Presbyterian party to the ques- 
tions of Parliament,* commits the whole Presbyterian 
body against the Premillenarian error : 

" That there were many corruptions which crept into the 
church in the very infancy of it, and were generally received as 
Apostolic traditions, which yet notwithstanding are not pleaded 
for by our Episcopal men, but many of them confessedly 
acknowledged to be errors and mistakes, witness first, the mil- 
lenary opinion which Justin Martyr saith, That he and all in all 
parts orthodox Christians held it." + 

The Westminster Standards agree with the Scriptures 
in making the great crisis of the world, the second ad- 
vent to judge the risen world ; Premillenarians make 
it the second advent to introduce the millennium ; some 
dogmatic divines make the crisis the private judgment 
at death. 

The Confession closes with the watchword of Paul and 
John, and of the apostolic Church ; yes, of all ages until 
the 1 8th century: 

" Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen." 

The Premillenarians make that prayer in view of the 
advent to introduce the millennium, but the West- 



* See pp. 176-177. t "Jus Divinum," Appendix, p. 100. 



WHITHER? 21 7 

minster divines made it with regard to the advent for 
judgment after the millennium. But it is evident that 
no one who believes that at least a thousand years must 
intervene between himself and the advent of Christ 
can make that prayer or have any real faith in the im- 
minency of the advent. Large numbers of the Presby- 
terian ministry of our day cannot subscribe to this clos- 
ing section of the Westminster Confession in its historic 
sense, and are really as contra-confessional at this point 
as the Premillenarians are at other points. 

PROBATION AFTER DEATH. 

In recent times the doctrine of a probation after 
death for those who have had no probation in this life, 
has sprung up in the Christian Church, chiefly with 
the unfolding of philosophical ethics, and has gained 
the adherence of not a few able divines in Great 
Britain and America. The doctrine of a probation 
after death depends upon the doctrine of a proba- 
tion in this life. The doctrine that this life is a pro- 
bation was not known to the Reformers or the West- 
minster divines. It is a doctrine that is inconsistent 
with Calvinistic principles. These represent that our 
race had a probation once for all in Adam at the 
beginning of human history and were condemned for 
failure in that probation, so that we are a lost race, 
not under probation, but under a curse and needing 
above all things redemption through Jesus Christ. The 
doctrine that this life is a probation was first introduced 
into modern theology by Daniel Whitby in 1710, in his 
attack on the Five Points of Calvinism. It was first 
made the common property of modern British and 
American theology by Bishop Butler in his " Analogy," 
which has been a universal text-book of Apologetics. 



218 PERPLEXITIES. 

In this way it gradually took possession of even Calvin- 
istic writers, and warped the theology of the most con- 
servative divines. 

Dr. E. D. Morris says that : " One of the radical vices 
in the theology of Dorner" "lies in his low and scant 
perception of this great ordinating doctrine " of the 
Moral Government of God. " The declension from the 
high position of Butler and his compeers on this doc- 
trine, has been a most serious calamity to more recent 
English theology also." * But the New England doc- 
trine of the Moral Government of God is only a demo- 
cratic twist in the doctrine of divine sovereignty and is 
not regarded by European divines as an advance in 
theology. Dr. Morris admits that its doctrine of pro- 
bation is a departure from the older Calvinism.f It is 
really a provincial and temporary freak in theology 
which has already been abandoned by thoughtful British 
divines and which will soon disappear from American 
theology. Dr. Morris cannot stand on this contra-con- 
fessional doctrine of a probation in this life and then 
deny its logical consequence, the extension of that 
probation into the middle state. 

If this life be a probation, then there is no ground in 
the Scriptures or in the Westminster symbols or in sound 
reason, why this probation should not be extended into 
the middle state for those who have had no probation 
here. I have examined all the arguments adduced by 
Dr. Morris and others in support of their position, 
that probation stops with death, and find that these will 
not bear criticism. The Scriptures and the Confession 
alike have the underlying doctrine that this life is not a 
probation, and therefore there are no reasons presented 



* " Is there Salvation after Death ? " p. 163. t /. c., p. 1755, 



WHITHER? 219 

in them for bringing this probation to a halt at death. 
They teach that our race is a lost race and that the great 
problem is to redeem as many of them as possible. It 
may be that there is no hope of regeneration after death, 
or of the initiation of the order of salvation in the 
middle state, but this is a very different doctrine from 
the doctrine that human probation ends with death. Dr. 
Morris admits that those dying in infancy are exempt 
from probation,* but claims that " in some way or 
other, and to some extent or other, God is actually try- 
ing and testing every human being who has reached 
moral consciousness, as to the great alternatives of right 
or wrong, duty or pleasure, disobedience or disloyalty to 
Him";f and even goes so far as to maintain what the 
Confession regards as " very pernicious and to be de- 
tested "J when he says: "The multitudes whom the 
great Swiss reformer anticipated seeing in the celestial 
life may, by the large grace of God bringing them to re- 
pentance and obedience during their earthly pilgrimage, 
possibly attain with us to that beatific home." § Dr. 
Prentiss well says : 

" The probationary conception of this life, at all events, is 
wholly inapplicable to that large portion of the human race who 
die in infancy. They are confessedly incapable of a probation 
in any proper sense of that term. We cannot think of them as 
here passing through a moral trial, on the result of which de- 
pends their weal or woe in the next world. They do neither 
good or evil here, nor will they be rewarded or punished there. 
But a religious theory of this life, which fails to meet the case of 
so large a portion of the human race, must needs be, to say the 
least, a partial, inadequate theory." | 

We must admit that the innumerable millions of 



* /. c, p. 196. t /. <"., p. 166. % See p. 121. % I. c. t p. 190. 

J Presbyterian Review, vol. iv., p. 569. 



* 



220 PERPLEXITIES. 

heathen who have passed into the middle state have 
had no real probation. They have had sufficient of the 
light of nature to condemn them as sinners. But the 
Westminster Confession teaches that they have no light 
of nature sufficient to save them, and they have had no 
offer of the grace of the Gospel.* Such a condition of 
affairs is no probation — they have had no opportunity 
whatever of salvation according to the Westminster 
scheme. And the probation " in some way or other, and 
to some extent or other," of Dr. Morris, is rather an in- 
definite sort of a thing to hang the everlasting destiny 
of any man upon. 

If this life is a probation upon which our everlasting 
future depends, then in order to have a fair trial and an 
equitable judgment, it is necessary that all should have 
a true and a complete probation. The lesser stages of 
probation must lead up to the higher stages, until every 
opportunity has been rejected and the only unpardon- 
able sin has been committed. The doctrine that this 
life is a probation, leads inevitably to the position that 
the middle state is a still larger field for probation, for 
the vast majority of our race who have had no probation 
here ; in which we must conceive of a preaching of the 
Gospel, regeneration, faith, justification, and the entire 
order of salvation begun and carried on. Those who 
take the contra-confessional position that this life is a 
probation, have no ground of resistance to the doctrine 
of the continuance of that probation in the middle 
state, until all have had the opportunity either of ac- 
cepting Christ as their Saviour or of committing the un- 
pardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. They cannot 
hold probation here without following the Andover 

* See p. 120. 



WHITHER? 221 

theory and holding probation there. Christian ethics 
will inevitably compel every probationist to become 
an out and out probationist for this world and for the 
next. 

Calvinists must give up this contra-confessional doc- 
trine altogether and recover their position on the West- 
minster doctrine of original sin and of redemption. The 
question we have to determine as Calvinists is whether 
the divine grace is limited in its operation to this world 
of ours, whether the divine act of regeneration may take 
place in the middle state or not, whether any part of 
the order of salvation is carried on there or not, and if 
any part, what part. We have already seen that the 
divine grace is not confined to this world, that sanctifi- 
cation by the divine grace must continue in the middle 
state.* But we see no reason why the divine grace may 
not regenerate all the elect before they leave this world. 
If the divine grace may be applied to the millions of 
infants dying in infancy, why not also to millions of 
adult heathen ? 

These questions force themselves upon us in connec- 
tion with our hopes for the salvation of infants and 
heathen, and they must be answered before there can be 
any comfort or stability in modern theology. 

I agree with my colleague, Dr. Prentiss, in preferring 
to trust with Calvinism to the electing grace of God 
rather than to the modern notion of human probation. 

" Universal infant salvation, then, does not and cannot stand 
alone ; it has a most important bearing upon the whole soterio- 
logical doctrine. It shows how inconceivably wide and deep is 
God's mercy in Jesus Christ. It shows that, speaking after the 
manner of men, He is doing all He can do for the actual re- 
demption of the world ; nothing keeps any soul from the gracious 

* See p. 210. 



222 PERPLEXITIES. 

operation of His infinite love and pity but its own wilful choice 
of evil and refusal of the good. ' Nihil ardet in inferno nisi pro- 
pria voluntas.' As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure 
in the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn away from his 
way and live." .... "A theodicy that shall meet the claims of 
Christian thought and satisfy the cravings of the Christian heart, 
or charm to silence its doubts and fears, must vindicate the ways 
of Providence toward the little children, as well as toward the 
full-grown men and women. Let us hope that as the kingdom 
of God comes nearer and nearer, and its heavenly light, whether 
shining through the ever-living Word, in the inspired Scriptures, 
or in believing souls, is more fully comprehended, such a the- 
odicy may yet bless the world. Certainly, a great step toward 
it will have been taken when the doctrine, that the countless 
myriads of the race who die in infancy, instead of being annihi- 
lated or lost, are forever with the Lord, shall become the com- 
mon faith of the Church, and, at the same time, all the theolog- 
ical consequences of the doctrine shall be recognized and as- 
signed their rightful place in the system of Christian truth." * 

It is evident that in the whole field of Eschatology 
there is great perplexity in the minds of the theologians 
and the ministry, as well as of the people. The middle 
state must be opened up in the discussions that are in 
progress. There must be the fullest liberty in this de- 
bate. Those who depart from the Confession in the di- 
rection of narrowness, limiting the grace of God, cannot 
in the name of orthodoxy condemn those who are more 
generous in their views of the operation of the divine 
grace in the middle state. Those who claim to be conser- 
vatives in their departures from the Confession have no 
right to censure those who recognize themselves as pro- 
gressives. In some respects the conservatives are the 
greater sinners. All should heed the great apostle to 
the Gentiles in his words : " Therefore thou art inexcus- 
able, O man, whosoever thou art that judge st, for wherein 



* Presbyterian Review, vol. iv., pp. 578-580. 



WHITHER? 223 

thou judgcst anotJier, thou condcimiest thyself, for thou 
t licit judge st doest the same tilings." 

We have tested the current orthodoxy by the West- 
minster Standards and have found that it is not in ac- 
cord with the Westminster Confession, even as a system, 
for there are many differences frpm articles and sections 
that are essential to the system. What does it matter 
if there be adherence to the hard doctrines of Calvinism 
if there is discord with the chief characteristics of the 
Puritan Confession ? Francis Turretine is not the 
standard of orthodoxy for Presbyterians ; but the West- 
minster Symbols are the secondary standards and the 
Word of God the primary standard. The Presbyterian 
Church as a Church tolerates contra-confessional doc- 
trines of the Church and the Sacraments and the Last 
Things in large numbers of its teachers and pastors. 
The characteristic doctrines of Puritanism, as contained 
in the middle section of the Confession, such as repent- 
ance, saving faith, assurance of grace, sanctification, and 
good works, have been neglected by our most eminent 
theologians and ministers. In the first eleven chapters 
there have been great contest, excessive definitions, and 
assertions of the claims of orthodoxy, but even here the 
breadth and depth of the Standards have not been ap- 
prehended. In the doctrine of the Scriptures and of 
justification by faith, the two great principles of Prot- 
estantism, not a few recognized leaders of the Presby- 
terian Church have departed from the Westminster doc- 
trine so far as to undermine and hazard these most pre- 
cious achievements of the Reformation. 

The Westminster system has been virtually displaced 
by the teachings of the dogmatic divines. It is no 
longer practically the standard of the faith of the Pres- 



224 PERPLEXITIES. 

byterian Church. The Catechisms are not taught in our 
churches, the Confession is not expounded in our theo- 
logical seminaries. The Presbyterian Church is not or- 
thodox, judged by its own Standards. It has neither 
the old orthodoxy nor the new orthodoxy. It is in per- 
plexity. It is drifting toward an unknown and a mys- 
terious future. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Barriers. 

We have thus far considered the Westminster Sym- 
bols as the tests of orthodoxy and have seen that the 
traditional theology in the Presbyterian churches is not 
in harmony therewith. If we should take the Articles 
of the Church of England as a test we would find that 
the Episcopal churches are in a similar situation. We 
would find that the Methodist, the Baptist, the Lutheran, 
and indeed all denominations of Christians have de- 
parted from their standards and are in the drift of the 
19th century. 

And this is exactly what we ought to expect from the 
history of the Church in former ages. The Church of 
Jesus Christ cannot long remain stationary. Action and 
reaction, ebb and flow, advance and decline govern all 
nature and all history. Why should any one have the 
presumption to suppose that the 17th century was the 
goal of Christian history, or that the definitions then 
made are the final doctrines for all time ? The very fact 
that the 17th century was a century of discord, of strife, 
of division in the churches, should teach us to look with 
some suspicion upon its work. 

As a Presbyterian, I do not hesitate to say that Chris- 
tian theology did not reach its perfection in the West- 
minster Assembly. The Westminster divines made no 

(225) 



226 BARRIERS. 

claim to infallibility. They made an advance in Chris- 
tian theology beyond any of their predecessors, but this 
ought to have encouraged their successors to advance 
still further the banner of Christian knowledge. 

Christian doctrine advances through the centuries 
under the guidance of the divine Spirit until He has led 
the Church into all truth. 

In some doctrines the Church has reached definite 
conclusions that will abide forever. The consensus of 
Christendom is a testimony of incalculable value. But 
there are many doctrines respecting which there is dis- 
cord in the Church, and where there must be an advance 
in order that this discord may pass away and concord be 
attained. There are other doctrines to which the Church 
has given little attention and respecting which there 
have been no official determinations in any of the 
Creeds. 

We have already considered at some length the estab- 
lished doctrines of the Church upon which we are to 
build, and have separated them from the errors of dog- 
maticians and popular prejudice. We reserve the doc- 
trines that the Church has still to unfold until our next 
chapter. We propose in this chapter to consider the 
doctrines that divide the Churches and the barriers to 
Christian union. 

DIVINE RIGHT OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 

The first great barrier to Christian union is the theory 
of submission to a central ecclesiastical authority claiming 
divine right of governme?it. 

This is the great sin of the Roman Catholic Church, 
which makes the pope at Rome, when speaking ex 
cathedra, the centre of unity and seat of absolute au- 
thority to decide all questions of religion, doctrine, and 



WHITHER? 227 

morals. The way to union according to this theory is 
to dissolve all other Christian churches. All Christians 
must receive confirmation from Roman Catholic bishops, 
and so enter the communion of the Roman Catholic 
Church, and then submit with unflinching allegiance to 
the authority of the pope and his bishops. Such a 
union requires, on the one side, the forfeiture of the 
right of private judgment and the violation of the lib- 
erty of conscience ; and on the other side the severance 
of the union and communion of the believer with his 
enthroned Saviour, and the re-establishment of union 
and communion through the mediation of the priests, 
bishops, and pope. It makes the visible Church, in a 
single one of its historical forms, the only means of ac- 
cess to the invisible Church and the presence of the Lord 
of glory. 

Richard Baxter well said : 

" This cheating noise and name of Unity hath been the great 
divider of the Christian world. And under pretence of suppress- 
ing heresie and schism, and bringing a blessed peace and har- 
monie amongst all Christians, the churches have been set all 
together by the ears, condemning and unchurching one another, 
and millions have been murthered in the flames, inquisition, and 
other kinds of death, and those are martyrs with the one part, 
who are burnt as hereticks by the other ; and more millions have 
been murdered by wars. And hatred and confusion is become 
the mark and temperament of those who have most loudly cried 
up U7iity and Concord, Order and Peace." * 

Protestant divines have always recognized that the 
Church of Rome was a true Church, one of the many 
branches of Christendom. They have ever recognized 
the validity of her baptism and her ordination. They 
unite with her in veneration of the noble army of mar- 



11 Cure of Church Divisions," 1670, p. 276. 



228 BARRIERS. 

tyrs — pious monks, bishops, archbishops, and popes — 
that have adorned the history of the Western Church. 
These are our heritage as well as theirs. The Reforma- 
tion broke the Western Church into several national 
Churches. The legitimate heirs of the ancient and me- 
diaeval Church are the national Churches of England, 
Scotland, Holland, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Den- 
mark, and Germany, no less than the Roman Catholic 
Church, which remained unreformed in the southern 
countries of Europe. 

The papacy as a hierarchical despotism claiming in- 
fallibility and usurping the throne of Jesus Christ is the 
Antichrist of the Reformers. Whether it be the Anti- 
christ of the Scriptures or not, it is the closest historical 
approximation to the Antichrist of prophecy that has 
yet appeared in the world. The papacy is antichristian, 
the great curse of the Christian Church. The papal 
system was one of the reasons for the separation of 
Greek and Roman Christianity into two antagonistic 
ecclesiastical organizations. It was the great barrier to 
the reformation of the Latin Church, and, when the 
Protestant Reformation came, the authority of the pope 
was given to the side of error and sin, and the reform- 
ers were persecuted unto death. As the supremacy of 
the pope severed Greek from Roman Christianity, so it 
made a rupture between the Christianity of the North 
of Europe and the Christianity of the South of Europe. 
In more recent times the same baneful influence forced 
the separation of the Jansenists and the Old Catholics. 
Thus this theory historically has proved to be the moth- 
er of discord in Christendom. It is the chief barrier to 
Christian union. 

" Neither indeed is there any hope, that ever we shall see a 
generall peace, for matters of religion, settled in the Christian 






WHITHER? 229 

world, as long as this supercilious Master shall bee suffered to 
keepe this rule in God's house: however much soever hee bee 
magnified by his owne disciples, and made the onely foundation 
upon which the unitie of the Catholick dependeth."* 

Until this barrier has been broken down the union of 
Christendom is impossible. The destruction of popery 
is indispensable to the unity of the Church. 

But the papacy is not the only form of ecclesiastical 
authority that has produced discord. On the continent 
of Europe, Protestant princes were set up as little popes 
to lord it over Christ's Church ; and in England, kings 
and queens usurped ecclesiastical supremacy ; and the 
ills of the seventeenth century, in the Thirty Years' War 
on the continent, and the civil wars of Great Britain, 
were largely owing to this cause. 

The result of the conflict in Great Britain was the es- 
tablishment of three rival theories of Church govern- 
ment, each claiming divine right — the Episcopal gov- 
ernment in England and Ireland, the Presbyterian 
government in Scotland, and the Congregational gov- 
ernment which was virtually established in New Eng- 
land. Each of these governments was alike intolerant 
and exclusive. Each of them alike rent the robe of 
Christ's Church. This should not surprise us, for any 
ecclesiastical government that usurps divine authority, 
is tyrannical and schismatic from the very nature of the 
case. It is in itself an usurpation of the crown rights of 
Jesus Christ. 

A scientific study of the sacred Scriptures and the 
first Christian century has shown that none of these 
forms of government is of divine right ; they all alike 
are of human origin, and have arisen from historic cir- 



* Ussher's " Brief Declaration," p. 14. 



230 BARRIERS. 

cumstances and sincere efforts to adapt the teachings 
of Scripture to these circumstances. It is noteworthy 
that there is agreement with reference to a single officer 
— the pastor of the congregation. All Christian church- 
es have pastors, and they cannot do their work without 
them. Here is the basis for union. It is agreed that 
he should be a man called of God to his work, and en- 
dowed with the gifts and graces that are needed for the 
exercise of his ministry. It is also agreed that he should 
be ordained either by the imposition of hands or some 
suitable ceremony. This presbyter-bishop of the New 
Testament is found in all ages of the Church and in all 
lands. Herein is the true historical succession of the 
ministry, in the unbroken chain of these ordained pres- 
byters. Herein is the world-wide government which is 
carried on through them. This is the one form of 
Church government that bears the marks of catholicity, 
that is semper ubique et ab omnibus. 

It matters little comparatively how the royal govern- 
ment of Jesus Christ and His power of the keys is com- 
municated to them, whether directly from the divine 
Master or mediately through the ordination of a pres- 
bytery or of a bishop, an archbishop or a pope, so long 
as the Lord Jesus Christ, the one king and head of the 
Church, actually carries on His government through 
them. We apprehend that the long-suffering Saviour 
will not deprive His people of the benefits of His reign, 
even if their leaders should make some mistakes in the 
form of government. This point of agreement in Church 
government should be insisted upon by the churches, 
whatever they may think of the importance of the other 
officers in the Church. If all the churches of Christen- 
dom would recognize the validity of the ordination of 
the ministry of the other churches, one of the chief bar- 



WHITHER? 



231 



riers to the concord of Christendom would be removed. 
They might deem this ordination as irregular and even 
disorderly, as not conformed to their own doctrine of 
church government ; they might contend vigorously for 
the superior excellence of their own orders ; if they 
would concede this one point to their fellow-Christians 
and fellow-ministers, the validity of whose ministry is 
attested by the Holy Ghost and its fruitfulness in good 
works. 

Apart from this single church officer there is no agree- 
ment whatever. The deacon in the prelatical churches 
is a young man in preparation for the priesthood in a 
lower order of ministry. In the Reformed churches he 
is a layman having charge of the poor and of financial 
affairs. Among the Congregational churches he is a 
representative of the people and an adviser of the pas- 
tor. The deacons of the New Testament have little 
resemblance with any of these modern deacons. 

The Reformed churches have elders who are associ- 
ated with the pastor in a congregational presbytery 
which has the government of the congregation. There 
are elders in the New Testament who constitute a pres- 
bytery, but the majority of the elders of the Reformed 
churches at the present time have little resemblance to 
them. There was considerable difference of opinion in 
the Westminster Assembly with regard to this office. 
Stephen Marshall said in the course of the debate : " If 
I conceived every one should be called to subscribe to 
it or exercise no ministry, I should be loath to give my 
vote." * 

The Protestant churches of America have been obliged 
to introduce the lay element into their congregational 



* MS. Minutes Westminster Assembly, ii M p. 248. 



232 BARRIERS. 

government and to give it representation in the higher 
ecclesiastical courts ; and these laymen with their differ- 
ent names have very similar work to that of the Presbyte- 
rian elders. The name is less important than the thing. 
The Presbyterian system seems to us to be the nearest 
to the New Testament representation and the most 
efficient and best organized method of lay representa- 
tion. It might be best to abandon the name ruling 
elder, which is of questionable origin and propriety, and 
use some other name that is not associated with histor- 
ical contests.* We should be willing to do this if it 
would advance the cause of Christian union. It seems 
to us there would be little difficulty in adjusting the 
mode of government of the congregations so as to sat- 
isfy all reasonable demands. 

The chief difficulties arise when we ascend to the 
Presbyteries, Conventions, Conferences, Associations, 
and the other general bodies, and ask the question as to 
their authority. All agree that their authority should 
be moral and spiritual, but it is in dispute whether it 
should be legal and imperative as of higher jurisdiction. 
It has been found necessary in American civil govern- 
ment to protect the liberties of the people in communi- 
ties and towns, and also in the States, and to limit the 
jurisdiction of the superior bodies. This matter has 
been too much neglected in ecclesiastical government. 
This is the way to solve not a few of our ecclesiastical 
controversies. Authority should decrease in extension 
and increase in intension as we ascend. The congrega- 
tion with its pastor have certain rights and liberties 
which should be regarded as sacred, upon which the 
higher ecclesiastical bodies ought not to encroach. The 
authority of the higher bodies should be limited, and 

* See p. 36. 



WHITHER ? 233 

absolute authority denied. A constitution is a great 
blessing to any church, for it defines the obligations of 
the minister and the people, and guarantees them liberty 
in all else. So the presbytery should have certain rights 
of control over its own churches into which the synod 
should not intrude. The synod's power should suffer 
still greater limitation. The power of the General As- 
sembly ought to be confined to very few matters, and 
those of general interest, such as the Constitution of 
the Church and its general work. 

The Congregational churches, with whom the Bap- 
tists agree, stand over against the Presbyterian and 
Episcopal forms of government as represented by the 
several Presbyterian, Reformed, Lutheran, and Meth- 
odist bodies, that hold to the Presbyterian form of gov- 
ernment, and the Episcopal Church, which maintains the 
Episcopal form of government. As regards agreement 
between the three forms, every effort was put forth for 
union and concord in the seventeenth century. The long 
debates in the Westminster Assembly show this. The 
words of the leading divines on both sides bear witness to it. 

Thomas Hill, the Presbyterian, says on the one side : 

" There is no such difference, for aught I know, between the 
sober Independent and moderate Presbyterian, but if things were 
wisely managed, both might be reconciled ; and by the happy 
union of them both together, the Church of England might be 
a glorious church, and that without persecuting, banishing, or any 
such thing, which some mouths are too full of. I confess it is 
most desirable that confusion (that many people fear by Inde- 
pendency) might be prevented ; and it is likewise desirable that 
the severity that some others fear, by the rigour of Presbytery 
might be hindred ; therefore let us labor for a prudent Love, and 
study to advance an happy accomodation." * 



* " An olive branch of peace and accomodation. Lord Mayor's Sermon, 
1645," printed 1648, p. 38. 



234 BARRIERS. 

So on the other side, Jeremiah Burroughs, the Congre- 
gationalism says : 

" Why should we not think it possible for us to go along close 
together in love and peace, though in some things our judgements 
and practices be apparently different one from another? I will 
give you who are scholars a sentence to write upon your study 
doores, as needf nil an one in these times as any ; it is this : 
opinionum varietas, et opinianiium unitas non sunt dovorara — Va- 
riety of opinions, and unity of those that hold them, may stand 
together. There hath been much ado to get us to agree ; we 
laboured to get our opinions into one, but they will not come 
together. It may be in our endeavours for agreement we have 
begun at the wrong end. Let us try what we can do at the other 
end; it may be we shall have better success there. Let us la- 
bour to joyne our hearts to engage our affections one to another : 
if we cannot be of one mind that we may agree, let us agree that 
we may be of one mind." * 

And so the Presbyterian ministers of the Provincial 
Assembly of London say: 

" A fifth sort are our reverend brethren of New and Old Eng- 
land of the Congregational way, who hold our churches to be 
true churches, and our ministers true ministers, though they 
differ from us in some lesser things. We have been necessitated 
to fall upon some things, wherein they and we disagree, and have 
represented the reasons of our dissent. But yet we here profess 
that this disagreement shall not hinder us from any Christian 
accord with them in affection. That we can willingly write upon 
our study doors that motto which Mr. Jer Burroughes (who a 
little before his death did ambitiously endeavour after union 
amongst brethren, as some of us can testifie) persuades all schol- 
ars unto, opinionum varietas, et opiniantium unitas non sunt 
daborara. And that we shall be willing to entertain any sincere 
motion (as we have also formerly declared in our printed vindi- 
cation) that shall farther a happy accommodation between us. 

"The last sort are the moderate, godly episcopal men, that 
hold ordination by Presbyters to be lawful and valid ; that a 



* " Irenicum to the Lovers of Truth and Peace," London, 1646, p. 255. 



WHITHER ? 235 

Bishop and a Presbyter are one and the same order of ministry, 
that are orthodox in doctrinal truths and yet hold that the gov- 
ernment of the Church by a perpetual Moderatour is most agree- 
able to Scripture pattern. Though herein we differ from them, 
yet we are farre from thinking that this difference should hinder 
a happy union between them and us. Nay, we crave leave to 
profess to the world that it will never (as we humbly conceive) 
be well with England till there be an union endeavoured and 
effected between all those that are orthodox in doctrine though 
differing among themselves in some circumstances about Church 
government." * 

Richard Baxter led in a great movement for union in 
the organization of the Worcester Association, in 1653. 
Similar organizations were made in other counties, such 
as Westmoreland, Cumberland, Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, 
Hampshire, and Essex. As Baxter says : 

" The main body of our Association were men that thought 
the Episcopal, Presbyterians, and Independents had each of 
them some good in which they excelled the other two parties, 
and each of them some mistakes ; and that to select out of all 
three the best part, and leave the worst, was the most desirable 
(and ancient) form of government."! 

So again in 1661-62, every effort was put forth for 
union between the Presbyterian and Episcopal parties. 
The Presbyterians were willing to accept the plan of 
Archbishop Ussherto reduce the Episcopate to the form 
of synodical government. They were willing to use 
the Book of Common Prayer with the exception of a 
very few passages and with the omission of a very few 
ceremonies. As Baxter said : 

" Oh, how little would it have cost your churchmen in 1660 
and 1 66 1 to have prevented the calamitous and dangerous di- 
visions of this land, and our common dangers thereby, and the 

* "Jus Divinum," Preface. 

t " Church Concord," Preface. London, 1691. 



236 BARRIERS. 

hurt that many hundred thousand souls have received by it ! 
And how little would it cost them yet to prevent the continuance 
of it ! " * 

The union was prevented in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries partly by political considerations, 
but chiefly by the theory that there could be no unity 
except by a submission to one strict form of church gov- 
ernment. And so the three forms that were evolved 
from the religious conflicts of Great Britain have main- 
tained themselves, strengthened their position, and have 
become unconquerable. What reasonable man can for a 
moment suppose that Presbyterianism will lose its hold 
upon Scotland and the North of Ireland, and give way 
to Episcopacy or Congregationalism, or that it will 
make any serious encroachments upon England or New 
England ? There is no probability that the Church of 
England will ever succeed in imposing prelatical Epis- 
copacy upon all the people of England, or will gain the 
supremacy over the Congregationalism of New England. 
Congregationalism will never gain much ground from 
Presbyterianism in the Middle and Southern States of 
America. In the Western States the three forms are 
upon more equal terms. Now that conquest is out 
of the question, and the reunion of Christendom is im- 
practicable by a strict adherence to any of these forms, 
it is manifest that there can be no union without mutual 
recognition, concession, and assimilation. Each form 
has certain advantages in it and also some disadvantages. 
That would be the most excellent form of government 
which would combine the good features and avoid the 
defects of all. 

There has* been assimilation in recent times, especially 



* " Penitent Confession," 1691, Preface. 



WHITHER? 237 

in America. The Congregational churches give more 
authority to their Associations than is known in Eng- 
land. The Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches give 
less authority to their supreme courts than is common 
in Great Britain. But the difference is still so great 
that consolidation is out of the question at present. 
But there is a possibility of union by Federation. It 
seems to me that there are no sufficient reasons why the 
Episcopal General Convention, the Congregational Gen- 
eral Council, the Baptist General Council, the Methodist 
Episcopal General Conference, the Presbyterian General 
Assemblies, and the Reformed General Synods should 
not all alike send representatives to a General Council 
of the Church of Christ of America, such a Council 
having only moral and spiritual authority. It seems to 
me that there are possibilities of union and co-operation 
in the general work of the Christian Church in America 
and in heathen lands that are incalculable in the good 
that might be produced. There are grand possibilities 
in the removal of barriers, stumbling-blocks, causes of 
friction and strife, and in the furtherance of peace, con- 
cord, and Christian love. 

But what shall we do with the historical episcopate ? 
We answer that the historical episcopate is an ambigu- 
ous term. There are many kinds of episcopates in 
Christian history. Some bishops claim the authority to 
rule the Church by divine right, some bishops derive 
their authority from archbishops, and some bishops re- 
ceive their authority from the Pope. There are also 
bishops who are superintendents chosen by presbyters, 
and who have no other authority than that imparted to 
them by those who have chosen them. There are also 
presbyterial bishops who exercise all the rights and 
fulfil all the duties of the Christian ministry. The great 



238 BARRIERS. 

difference of opinion that prevails in the Church o'» 
Christ on the subject of the historical episcopate is in 
the matter of order and real seat of authority. Chris- 
tendom might unite with an ascending series of super- 
intending bishops that would culminate in a universal 
bishop, provided the pyramid would be willing to rest 
firmly on its base, the solid order of the presbyter-bish- 
ops of the New Testament and of all history and all 
churches. But the pyramid will never stand on its apex 
nor hang suspended in the air supported by any of its 
upper stages. 

We confess to a warm sympathy with those members 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church who desire to re- 
move the terms Protestant Episcopal from the name of 
their Church, on the ground that these terms are schis- 
matical. All such terms are from the very nature of the 
case schismatical. They represent that the churches 
that bear them are parties or branches of the Church, 
and not the true and pure Church of Christ. 

But the names really correspond with the facts ; they 
express the truth. The evil of schism is in the churches. 
It will not cure the evil to abolish the names. When 
the evil of schism has been cured, then the schism and 
the names will disappear likewise. In the meanwhile 
it is far better that the names should remain and express 
the true state of the case to all earnest souls. They 
may perhaps sting the conscience and goad the will to 
earnest action in behalf of peace and unity. 

" Why, sirs, have not Independents, Presbyterians, Episcopall, 
etc., one God, one Christ, one Spirit, one Creed, one Scripture, 
one hope of everlasting life ? Are our disagreements so great 
that we may not live together in love, and close in fraternal 
union and amity ? Are we not of one Religion ? Do we differ 
in fundamentals or substantials ? Will not conscience worry us ? 



WHITHER ? 239 

Will not posterity curse us, if by our divisions we betray the gos- 
pel into the hands of the enemies ? And if by our mutuall envy- 
ings and jealousies and perverse zeal for our severall conceits, we 
should keep open the breach for all heresies and wickednesse to 
enter, and make a prey of our poor people's souls : Brethren, you 
see other bonds are loosed, Satan will make his advantage of 
these daies of licentiousnesse ; let us straiten the bond of Chris- 
tian unity and love, and help each other against the powers of 
hell, and joyn our forces against our common enemy."* 

SUBSCRIPTION TO ELABORATE CREEDS. 

Another great barrier to the reunion of Christendom 
is subscription to elaborate Creeds. This is the great sin 
of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches. Every one of 
these creeds has separated subscribers from non-sub- 
scribers and occasioned the organization of dissenting 
churches. Lutherans, Calvinists, and Arminians, and 
sections of the same, have been separated into different 
ecclesiastical organizations. These doctrinal divisions 
have done more than anything else to weaken Protest- 
antism and stay its progress in Europe. These contro- 
versies that centre about the creeds of the seventeenth 
century still continue, but they are not so violent as they 
used to be. Each of the varieties of Protestantism has 
won its right to exist and to be recognized in the com- 
mon family. The differences cannot be solved by con- 
quest, but only by some higher knowledge and better 
adjustment of the problems through an advance in the- 
ological conception and definition. The question now 
forces itself upon earnest men whether these differences 
justify ecclesiastical separation, and whether they may 
not be left to battle their own way to success or defeat 

* " Christian Concord, or the Agreement of the Associated Pastors and 
Churches of Worcestershire, with Richard Baxter's Explication and Defence of 
it, and his Exhortation to Unity," p. 96. London, 1653. 



2-tO BARRIERS. 

without the help of ecclesiastical fences and traditional 
prejudices. 

" It is not the part of wise Divines, so to swell and increase 
the number of Fundamentall points, that all Christians, as well 
learned, as unlearned, should be wholly uncertaine, and ignorant, 
what, and of what kind those be which are adjudged properly to 
belong to the Foundation of Religion, & Catholike Faith. But if 
we should let the matter run on so long, till all the controverted 
Problemes betwixt Protestants are counted Fundamentall, long 
since they have grown to too numerous, hereafter they may grow 
to an almost numberlesse multitude. For this solemne course 
and practice is observed of many, that what they themselves 
have added to any Fundamentall axioms as over weight, and 
what they beleeve to be a consequence of the same, this they 
presently require of all, to be counted in the number of Funda- 
mentalls. If we grant to any particular Churches, or to their 
Doctors, this power of creating and multiplying Fundamentals ; 
all hope is past of the certainty of the Catholike Faith, all hope 
is gone of a Brotherly communion of the Catholike Church."* 

The differences between the Lutherans, Calvinists, and 
Arminians have nothing to do with the essentials of 
Protestantism. All alike hold that the Word of God is 
the only infallible rule of faith and practice ; that men 
are justified by faith in Jesus Christ and not by works of 
righteousness or ceremonies ; that good works are the 
fruit of justifying faith and give assurance of acceptance 
with God ; and above all, that salvation is of the divine 
grace through Jesus Christ, the only mediator and re- 
deemer. These are the great verities of Protestantism, 
and they are vastly more important than those peculiar 
doctrines that distinguish the Lutheran, Calvinistic, and 
Arminian systems. After many efforts, renewed from 
time to time from the Reformation until the present 
century, the Reformed and Lutheran Churches have 

* Bishop Davenant, "An Exhortation on the restoring of Brotherly Commun- 
ion betwixt the Protestant Churches," p. 121. London, 1641. 



WHITHER? 211 

combined in the Evangelical Church of Prussia and 
other German States. This reunion has proved a great 
success, and has been fruitful for good. There is no suf- 
ficient reason why the Lutheran and Reformed Churches 
should not unite in America. This will be accom- 
plished when theologians are willing to recognize that 
the few poijits of difference between them are debat- 
able and tolerable, rising like mountain peaks above 
the great ranges of doctrine in which there is entire 
concord. 

The Reformed Church was broken up into two great 
parties calling themselves Calvinists and Arminians. 
Holland was the centre of this unhappy conflict, but it 
extended over entire Europe and distracted all the na- 
tional Churches of the Reformed faith. The Articles of 
the Synod of Dort were adopted to exclude Arminians 
from orthodoxy, but they have never given satisfaction 
to the intermediate party, which has now become the 
most numerous of all. Arminianism was really a reac- 
tion from the supralapsarian Calvinism. It would have 
been simple justice to cut them both off at the same 
time. But it is one of the singularities of religious his- 
tory, that narrow views of sacred things and extreme 
rigidity of doctrine succeed in maintaining their errors 
within the orthodox fold, while errors of a more gener- 
ous type are often cast out. Calvinism cannot be iden- 
tified with the Five Points of the Synod of Dort. The 
conflict with Arminianism developed a conflict between 
the scholastic type of Calvinism and the milder Calvin- 
ism of the school of Saumur of France, the Federalists 
of Holland, and the evangelical Puritanism of Calamy, 
Baxter, and their associates in Great Britain. These 
strifes were renewed in America in the eighteenth cent- 
ury, and resulted in the separation of the so-called old 



242 BARRIERS. 

school and new school. Really and historically the one 
was as old as the other. 

The two parties united in happy union in our great 
American Presbyterian Church and made it broader, 
more catholic, and fruitful. But this reunion ought to 
be the beginning and not the end of the reunion of 
Presbyterian churches. There are no such oloctrinal dif- 
ferences in the other branches of Presbyterianism as to 
justify separation. The Southern Presbyterian Church 
as a body seems to represent the scholastic type of Cal- 
vinism, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church the semi- 
Arminianism of the milder type of Calvinism. There is 
a natural tendency of the sterner Calvinists to affiliate 
with the former and of the milder Calvinists to prefer 
the latter. Any scheme of Reunion that would prove 
successful and give satisfaction to all parties should em- 
brace both these Churches. 

The largest ecclesiastical body in the United States 
is the Methodist Episcopal Church, which is distinguished 
by its Arminian type of doctrine. It is fortunate that 
the Presbyterian churches do not bear the name of Cal- 
vin, and that the Methodist Episcopal Church does not 
bear the name of Arminius. Indeed, the types of doc- 
trine in these churches do not agree altogether with 
the names of these two great Protestant divines. The 
doctrinal system of the Westminster symbols is not the 
scholastic type of Calvinism of the Swiss or Dutch di- 
vines. It is not the type of the French school of Sau- 
mur or of the Federalists of Holland. It is the distinct 
Puritan type of Calvinism. And so the doctrinal system 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as presented in its 
revised edition of the XXXIX Articles, and the Teach- 
ings of John Wesley, is not the Arminianism of Holland, 
but is semi-Arminianism of the English type. There is 



WHITHER ? 243 

more of English Puritanism in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church in its practical religious life than there is of Ar- 
minianism in its creed. The English Puritanism that is 
common to these two great branches of the Church of 
Christ is much more important than the doctrinal vari- 
ations. In my judgment these differences do not justify 
separation. Dr. Prentiss says : 

" The evangelical Arminianism of Methodism has very close 
and vital affinities to the Puritan evangelical type of Calvinism ; 
and it is for the interest of the Christian cause to emphasize this 
fact. So, at least, thought one of the ablest and most sagacious 
Calvinistic theologians our country has produced. I refer to the 
late Henry Boynton Smith. In a letter written in January, 1871, 
and addressed to a distinguished Methodist clergyman, he says : 

" ' What is it that keeps Methodists and Presbyterians apart ? 
Is it anything essential — to the church or even to its well-being ? 
For one, I do not think that it is. Your so-called " Arminianism " 
being of grace, and not of nature, is in harmony with our sym- 
bols. It is a wide outlook which looks to an ecclesiastical union 
of Methodists and Presbyterians, but I am convinced that it is 
vital for both, and for Protestantism and for Christianity vs. Ro- 
manism in this country ; and that it is desirable per se. 

" ' 1 am also persuaded that our differences are merely intel- 
lectual (metaphysical), and not moral or spiritual ; in short, for- 
mal and not material. As to polity, too, so far as the Scriptures 
go, there is no essential difference between us. Your " bishops " 
I do not object to, but rather like, and our " elders " I think you 
would like, on due acquaintance. As to Christian work, where 
you are strong we are weak ; but your local preachers and class- 
leaders, are they really anything more than our "elders" — lay 
elders — under another name ? ' " * 

With this opinion I entirely concur. I do not under- 
rate the importance of the points of difference. I would 
not be willing to yield any position of historic Calvinism 
or to depart from the Puritan type of doctrine. But I 

* Presbyterian Review, July, 1883, p. 563. 



244 BARRIERS. 

see no reason why Calvinism could not maintain itself 
in the same ecclesiastical organization with Arminian- 
ism. It vindicates its right to live and grow in the two 
great Episcopal Churches and in Congregational churches. 
I have such confidence in the principles of Calvinism 
that I believe they would have a better chance of over- 
coming Arminianism in a free and chivalrous contest in 
the same ecclesiastical organization, than they now have, 
when shut off by themselves and carefully excluded from 
the largest body of Christians in America. We doubt 
whether it is practicable or advisable at the present 
time to consolidate the Presbyterian and the Methodist 
families, but there might be a Federation and an Alli- 
ance for union and co-operation in the general work of 
the Church of Christ. 

The doctrinal differences are not so great as some 
imagine. No one will suspect Bishop Davenant of any 
unfaithfulness to Calvinistic principles. He represented 
the Church of England at the Synod of Dort and con- 
curred in its decisions ; and yet he treats of the matters 
in dispute in the following generous way : 

" It appeared lately in the conference of Lipsigh that there is 
an agreement in all these Points. If there be any other things 
remaining they are rather controversies about words than about 
matter; rather discords about subtile speculations than funda- 
mentall articles. Such are those which are disputed betwixt 
Schoolmen, of the Signification of the very words, namely, Pre- 
destination and Reprobation ; of the Imaginary order of Priority, 
and Posteriority betwixt the Eternal Acts of Predestinating and 
Fore-knowing, of the unsearchable manner of Divine working 
about all humane actions, whether good or bad, of the necessitie, 
or contingency of all things, which from Eternity were predesti- 
nated, or fore-knowne of God. In such perplexed controversies 
it cannot bee, but contradictions must arise often-times betwixt 
Disputants ; yet brotherly Concord may be made up and main- 
tained betwixt the churches themselves, as anciently it was pre- 



whither ? 245 

served betwixt the African and Latine churches, their Doctors 
in the meantime being of different opinions in the weighty Ques" 
tion of Baptizing of Hereticks. To close up all in a word : those 
churches (falsely so called) may be forsaken, which possesse not 
the Foundation of the Apostles preaching : But true Churches 
ought not to be deserted and pluckt asunder from others for the 
errors of particular Doctors, because the Faith of Churches 
leanes not upon the names or writings of single Persons." * 

The theological systems of the three great branches 
of Protestantism have been elaborated by a priori logic 
and by deduction from premises that are not sufficiently 
accurate and comprehensive. They have all of them 
departed a long distance from the Scriptures and the 
Creeds of the Reformation. It has been found necessary 
in recent times to distinguish between the theology of 
the Bible and the theology of the schools, between the 
doctrines of the Confessions of Faith and the doctrines 
of the theologians. There are now three distinct the- 
ological disciplines that have to do with Christian doc- 
trine — Biblical Theology, Symbolics, and Dogmatics. 
These do not by any means correspond. Protestantism 
has fallen into a great error in its doctrinal development. 
It has substituted Protestant scholasticism for mediaeval 
scholasticism, and Protestant Tradition for Roman Cath- 
olic Tradition. f It is necessary to overcome this error of 
the Protestant divines. As Davenant says : 

" 1 conceive it no great difference whether we place unwritten 
traditions in joint commission with the holy Scriptures, or wheth- 
er we enforce our controversies on all churches to be knowne 
and beleeved, under the same necessity of salvation, with a solid 
and manifest doctrine of the Gospel." J 

" It would apply some plaister to this soare, if the Divines of 
both sides would remember, that although all the Articles of 
the Catholique Faith are plaine, and perspicuous (as written in 



" Exhortation," 1641, p. 151. \ See pp. 12, 21. \ I. c, p. 3. 



246 BARRIERS. 

God's Word with capitall Letters, so that he that runneth may- 
read them), yet what thence is extracted by the chymistry of 
man's understanding are divers and of different kinds, most of 
them so obscure that they escape the eyes of the most sharpe- 
sighted Divines. We must therefore confidently leane with all 
our weight on what the Scriptures have decided ; but not lay so 
much stresse on the consequences of our deduction. Luther 
said well out of Ambrose, Away with Logicians, where wee must 
beleeve Fishermen. For in the mysteries of Faith the majesty of 
the matter will not bee pent within the narrow roome of Reason, 
nor come under the roof of Syllogisme ; wherefore the same Luther 
wisely admonisheth us, that in matters surmounting the capac- 
ity of Humane Reason, we beware of Etymologies, Analogies, 
Consequences, and Examples."* 

Another sin of Protestantism as well as of Romanism 
has been the abuse of the sacred Scriptures by improper 
methods of interpretation. The grammatical and the 
historical sense has been neglected. The variety of type 
of the Biblical authors has been ignored. The Scrip- 
tures have been too often interpreted to conform to the 
Rule of Faith. The Rule of Faith to the Reformers 
and the Westminster divines was in the plain passages 
of Scripture, but the Reformed system of doctrine of 
the scholastic type was often substituted for the Scrip- 
tural rule of faith, and thus the Scriptures were forced 
to correspond with the scholastic system. f It mat- 
ters little if texts can be adduced in favor of these 
elaborations of doctrine unless these passages speak in 
such plain language that they convince mankind in gen- 
eral. As Herbert Palmer, one of the Westminster di- 
vines, says : " When we have to do with Scriptures that 
are ambiguous, then those things produced should 
not be with too much rigor urged upon other men." % 



* " Exhortation," pp. 6, 7. t Briggs' " Biblical Study," p. 362. 

% MS. Minutes of Westminster Assembly, ii., f. 252. 



WHITHER? 247 

Thomas Gataker, another Westminster divine, tersely 
says : " Fundamental poynts ly in a narrow compass." * 
Calybute Downing, another Westminster divine, says : 
" Fundamentals in points of belief are few." f 
Richard Baxter says : 

"And indeed he knovveth not man, who knoweth not that uni- 
versal unity and concord will never be had upon the terms of 
many, dark, uncertain, humane, or unnecessary things, but only 
on the terms of things, few, sure, filain, divine, and necessary." % 

The names Lutheran, Reformed, and Arminian are 
the badges of distinct systems of Protestant faith ; they 
will continue so to be. It is fortunate that Arminian is 
not a name given to any particular Church. The names 
Reformed and Lutheran smack of the old controversies ; 
they have been rightly abandoned by the United Church 
of Germany, and the name Evangelical has taken their 
place. It would be a happy thing for American Chris- 
tianity if these names could be abandoned here likewise. 
The names will remain, however, so long as the differ- 
ences remain. We have to learn the great principle of 
Unity in Variety. That variety we find in the sacred 
Scriptures in the four great types of doctrine represented 
by James, Peter, Paul, and John. We find them in the 
Old Testament in the Levitical writers, on the one hand, 
and the prophets on the other, to which we must add as 
separate types the authors of the Wisdom Literature and 
of the Psalter. We find these types in all the great re- 
ligions of the world ; they recur in Christian history ; they 
are rooted in the different temperaments of mankind ; 
they manifest themselves in those great types that dom- 



* /. c, ii., f. 248. 

t " Considerations towards a Peaceable Reformation," p. 4, London, 1641. 

% "True and only Way of Concord," p. 143, London, 16S0. 



24:8 BARRIERS. 

inate all thinking and acting, that we call Mysticism, 
Rationalism, and Scholasticism.* Accordingly the 
Church of Christ, like the Scriptures, should comprehend 
them all and not exclude any of them. There can be no 
true unity that does not spring from this diversity. The 
one Church of Christ is vastly more comprehensive than 
any one denomination. If the visible Church is to be 
one, the pathway to unity is in the recognition of the 
necessity and the great advantage of comprehending the 
types in one broad, catholic Church of Christ. 

" And brotherly unity is the genuine and rare fruit of brotherly 
love, by every Christian to be endeavoured to the utmost extent 
of gospell possibility. Nothing in our own spirits of corrupt dis- 
temper, carnall ends, or undue prejudice should hinder it ; noth- 
ing in our brethren sound in the faith, and of godly conversation, 
though not absolutely agreeing with us in way of disposition, or 
opinion in all things ; Christians cannot be all alike here. All 
have not the same intellectual complexion. It is a great defect 
of meekness of wisdome to refuse all agreement with others be- 
cause they agree not with us in all things. Neither may any other 
Christian precept hinder us."t 

UNIFORMITY OF WORSHIP. 

The third great barrier to Christian Union is the in- 
sisting upon uniformity of worship. This is a special sin 
of the Church of England. The British prelates pressed 
this theory of Christian union to an extreme, and perse- 
cuted the Puritans in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies. The result of this persecution was civil war and 
the organization of the three national churches of Great 
Britain, with a large number of dissenting churches. 

Uniformity of worship has proved the fruitful source 



* Briggs' " Biblical Study," pp. 367 seg. 

t " The Agreement of the Associated Ministers of the County of Essex," p. 12, 
London, 1658. 



WHITHER ? 249 

of discord. The points of difference between the Puri- 
tans and the Prelatists at the start were not great. The 
separation greatly increased them. The churches that 
sprang into existence as the result of the civil wars are 
farther apart in worship than they were when they were 
all nestled in the bosom of the Churches of England, 
Scotland, and Ireland. It would have cost the British 
bishops very little concession to have satisfied the Puri- 
tans at the close of the sixteenth century, or even at the 
Savoy Conference in 1660-61. The Puritans were as 
much opposed to separation as the Episcopal party and 
as earnest in their desire for a national establishment. 
But the bishops refused to make concessions, and in- 
sisted upon uniformity and the persecution of non- 
conformists.* The distractions in religious affairs in Brit- 
ish and American church history are in great part due 
to that fatal blunder. There can be no such thing as 
uniformity of worship. The separating of non-conform- 
ing churches did not lead to uniformity, even in the 
Church of England itself. 

Francis Makemie well puts it at the close of the seven- 
teenth century : 

" Therefore let us still value and esteem unity in Doctri?ie and 
Worship, and the greater and more weighty matters, preferring 
it before an exact and accurate uniformity, in every Pimctilio of 
Circumstance and Ceremony, which no nation hath hitherto at- 
tained, the Church of England not excepted ; for what uniformity 
is between your Cathedral and Parochial worship ? between such 
churches as have Organs and those that want them ? between 
such as Sing, or Chant the Service, and such as do not ? between 
such as read the whole Service, and others that Minse it, and read 
but a part ? between those that begin with a free Prayer, and 
such as do not? And in the same Congregations, what Uniform- 
ity is between such as use Responses, and such as do not? between 



* Briggs' "American Presbyterianism," pp. 82 seq. 



950 BARRIERS. 

such as bow to the East, or the Altar, and such as do not? be- 
tween such as bow the k?iee, and those that only bow the head, at 
the Name or Word, Jesus? What uniformity — between such as 
Sing Psalms, and most that do not? And I find many of the 
Sons of the church, break uniformity, and Canons, as well as their 
neighbours : what uniformity act or Common Prayer, allows any 
to begin with a Prayer of their own, as the greatest and best have 
done, though others call it a Geneva trick? What uniformity 
act enjoins Organs, and- Singing Boyes : and where is bowing to 
the East and Altar, with all other Church Honours, commanded ? 
What warrants the use of the publick Fori7i lor private Baptism? 
why is the burial Service read over any Dissenters that are all ex~ 
co?nmujiicated 'by your Canons? 

" Let me humbly and earnestly, with all Submission, address 
the conformable clergy — in this Island, to instruct their People, 
that they and we profess the same Christian and Protestant Re- 
ligion, only with some alterations in external Cere7nonies and cir- 
cumsta7ices ; that we may unite in affection and strength, against 
the common enemy of our Reformation, and concur in the great 
work of the Gospel, for the manifestation of God's glory, and the 
Conviction, Conversion, and Salvation of Souls in this Island, in- 
structing such as are Ignorant, in the principal and great things 
of Religion, promoting vertue and true holiness, and Preaching 
down and reproving all Atheism, irreligion, and profanity, seal- 
ing and confirming all by an universal Copy, pattern and example, 
of a holy, and ministerial life and Conversation." * 

There are just as great differences at the present time 
in the worship of the Church of England and her daugh- 
ters. With the optional parts of the liturgy, the ad- 
ditions that may be made, especially in ceremonial, in 
robes, in decorations, in altar furniture, and in gestures 
of bodily worship, uniformity of worship is certainly out 
of the question. The Reformed Churches and the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church have liturgical forms for sacra- 
mental services, and some of the Reformed Churches 
have optional liturgies for the whole or part of the Sab- 



* " Truths in a True Light," pp. 21, 22. Edin., 1699. 



WHITHER? 251 

bath services. The German Reformed and the Lutheran 
Churches have liturgical books. But there is no uni- 
formity of worship in any of these Churches. The Pres- 
byterian Churches have Directories of Worship all based 
on the Westminster Directory, but these have been 
changed from time to time. They prescribe the order 
of services, but leave the use of forms of prayer entirely 
optional. There is an entire lack of uniformity of wor- 
ship in the Presbyterian churches.* The Congregational 
and the Baptist churches have still greater diversity in 
mode and forms of worship. There is greater diversity 
of worship in the Christian Church now than at any 
previous period of its history. There is every reason 
to suppose that this will increase rather than diminish. 
There is no hope whatever of uniformity of worship. 

And yet there is essential unity even in the midst of 
all this diversity. The five great parts of worship are 
found in all churches — namely, Common Prayer, Sacred 
Song, Reading of the Sacred Scriptures, the Sermon, 
and the Apostolic Benediction. The differences, in the 
selections of the themes of sermons, and in the passages 
of Scripture to be read, do not destroy the essential unity 
in these two parts of public worship. Some Presbyterian 
Churches have insisted upon uniformity in sacred song 
no less than the Church of England has insisted upon 
uniformity in common prayer. We have to thank the 
Episcopal Churches for our freedom in praise no less 
than the Presbyterian Churches for our freedom in 
prayer. Happily there are at present few Presbyterians 
who insist upon limiting our praise to the Psalm-book 
and Paraphrases, and the bare, cold worship without 
organs. It is a singularity of several branches of the 
Presbyterian Church that they insist upon excluding 

* See pp. 48 seq. 



252 BARRIERS. 

Christian hymns and musical instruments from divine 
worship. So far as musical instruments are concerned, 
these form so important a part in the worship of the an- 
cient temple, and in the great assemblies of the Church 
in heaven, revealed to us by the Apocalypse, that one is 
amazed that any one should refuse to employ them. In 
our opinion the use of musical instruments in the wor- 
ship of God will be increased in the future. The drift 
is so strong in that direction that it is impossible to re- 
sist it. But if any congregations should prefer to wor- 
ship without musical instruments they should be allowed 
to do so. Only they ought not to commit the sin of 
rending the Church of Christ on such unscriptural and 
unreasonable grounds as these. The use of Christian 
hymns began in the Scriptures of the New Testament. 
There are several hymns in the New Testament writ- 
ings ; so all ages of the Church have produced hymns of 
beauty and of power. There is no sufficient reason why 
these should not be used in divine worship. There is no 
prohibition of their use in Scripture. There is no pre- 
scription of the use of the Psalter in public worship 
either in the Old or the New Testament. The Psalter 
was a book for the synagogue rather than the temple. 
If any congregation should desire to limit itself to the 
Book of Psalms and Paraphrases of Scripture we have 
no objection, so long as it does not obtrude this opinion 
upon other congregations. It is a sin and a shame to 
rend the Church of Christ for such a trifle as this. 

In sacred song uniformity has entirely disappeared. 
Private selections of hymns have taken the place of the 
official hymn-book of the Churches, and these are used 
often without regard to denomination. A considerable 
number of Christian hymns are used in all Protestant 
churches that do not limit themselves to the Psalms and 



WHITHER ? 253 

Paraphrases. It would be easy to select a hymn-book 
of considerable size, even from their own books, that 
would satisfy all of these churches. The freedom here 
has wrought greater unity than we find in those parts of 
worship where there is less liberty. 

There is greater difficulty in the common prayer. The 
excellence of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church 
of England is generally recognized. But considerable 
alterations will need to be made in order to make it ac- 
ceptable to evangelical Christians in general ; and there 
must be the recognition of the liberty of free prayer in 
a part of the service. I would prefer the use of a 
prayer-book for all the parts of common prayer at the 
Sabbath services, with the exception of a brief free 
prayer at the close of the services, expressing the special 
needs of the congregation and the day. But the mass 
of evangelical Christians would not at present go so far 
as this. It should also be said that there are other ad- 
mirable prayer-books besides that of the Church of Eng- 
land. The prayer-books of the Lutheran and Re- 
formed Churches have also their advantages ; and there 
is no good reason why we should be confined to forms 
of prayer of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or 
those of earlier date. The eighteenth and nineteenth 
centuries ought to be able to enrich a prayer-book that 
would adequately express the worship of our day. The 
Churches that use prayer-books should direct their ener- 
gies to enriching them by removing obsolete parts and 
adding more appropriate prayers from other service 
books and modern divines. If an effort were to be made 
to enrich the prayer-books similar to that which has been 
so successful in the hymn-books, it would meet with 
equal if not greater success. There is a movement in 
that direction in the American Episcopal Church which 



254 BARRIERS. 

is worthy of commendation. But it is probable that un- 
official hands will have to lead in this noble work. A 
very successful effort of this kind has been made in the 
Church of Scotland. 

On the other hand, those Churches that have no 
prayer-books should overcome their prejudices against 
their use. These prejudices are largely traditional, and 
are owing to the fact that the Puritan fathers had to 
battle for liberty against uniformity. But it is a happy 
circumstance that the Presbyterian Churches have not 
taken any official action against the use of liturgical 
books. Any Presbyterian congregation has the right at 
the present time to use a book of prayer if it see fit, and 
some congregations avail themselves of the privilege in 
whole or in part. There are great advantages in written 
forms of prayer. As Richard Baxter says : 

" The famousest Divines in the Church of God, even Luther, 
Zwinglius, Melancthon, Calvin, Perkins, Si'bbs, and abundance of 
non-conformists of greatest name in England, did ordinarily use 
a form of prayer of their own, before their Sermons in the Pul- 
pit, and some of them in their families too. Now, these men 
did it not through idleness or through temporizing, but because 
some of them found it best for the people, to have oft the same 
words ; and some of them found such a weakness of memory, 
that they judged it the best improvement of their own gifts."* 

We hail, with gratitude to God, the noble declaration 
of the House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church — 

" that in all things of human ordering or human choice relating 
to modes of worship and discipline or to traditional customs, 
this Church is ready, in the spirit of love and humility, to forego 
all preferences of her own." 



* " Cure of Church Divisions," p. 183. London, 1670. 



WHITHER? 255 

We sincerely hope that other Christian Churches are 
ready to meet them in the same generous spirit. 

The greatest difficulty remains in the celebration of 
the Sacraments. Many of the Baptist churches hold 
that immersion is the only mode of baptism. This im- 
plies that all who have not been baptized by immersion 
are not members of the visible Church, and that there- 
fore there are no other visible churches than these Bap- 
tist churches. The doctrine of close communion is a 
necessary consequence of this doctrine, for no one can 
rightly partake of the Lord's Supper who has not been 
baptized. We apprehend that our Baptist brethren do 
not realize how intolerant this position really is. It is 
more intolerant than the doctrine that refuses to recog- 
nize the validity of the ordination of Xhe ministry of the 
non-Episcopal Churches, for this doctrine only denies the 
ministry of these Churches, while it recognizes their bap- 
tism as valid, and that they and their people are mem- 
bers of the visible Church of Christ. But the Baptist 
doctrine, with one blow, destroys the ministry and the 
ecclesiastical position of all the people of other Christian 
churches, by refusing to recognize the validity of their 
baptism. 

After all the scholarly discussion upon the subject of 
the primitive mode of baptism, the Baptist churches are 
in a small minority of the Christian world on this ques- 
tion. Baptism by immersion is not distinctly com- 
manded in the New Testament, and it is by no means 
clear that immersion was the mode by which our Saviour 
and His apostles were baptized. Our Baptist brethren 
have not been able to convince the ministry of the other 
Christian churches, who are equally competent with 
themselves to interpret the Bible and the first Christian 
century. I do not believe that Christ and His apostles 



256 BARRIERS. 

were baptized by immersion. I would not hesitate to 
follow any evidence that could be produced to prove 
the Baptist position. Immersion would be a small price 
to pay for Christian Unity. But my study of the ques- 
tion has convinced me that Jewish ceremonial baptisms 
were by sprinkling or pouring ; that such ceremonial 
baptisms are mentioned in the New Testament ; that the 
symbolism of baptism is in favor of pouring rather than 
submersion ; that partial immersion of the body and not 
submersion is all that can be proved from the New 
Testament and the testimony of Christian antiquity ; 
and that there is nothing essential in the mode of bap- 
tism. If we should concede, with many scholars who 
are not Baptists, that immersion was the primitive 
mode of baptism, it would by no means follow that the 
mode of baptism should be by immersion throughout 
all time. It seems to me that some Baptists sin as 
greatly in their insistance upon uniformity in the cer- 
emony of baptism, as some Episcopalians in insisting 
upon uniformity in certain ceremonies of worship, and 
some Presbyterians in insisting upon uniformity in psalm- 
singing. If the Baptists could affirm, from their point 
of view, that the baptism celebrated in other Christian 
churches is valid as to its essence, owing to the applica- 
tion of water in the name of the blessed Trinity, though 
irregular in form, the barrier would be removed. Other 
churches recognize baptism by immersion as valid, and 
the ceremony might by common consent be left to the 
conscientious preference of Associations of churches, 
congregations or even individuals. 

It is not credible that the Redeemer would refuse 
the grace of regeneration and communion in His Church 
to those who trust in Him and follow Him, even if they 
have made some mistakes in the mode of baptism. We 



whither? 257 

cannot think that the Church ceased to exist in all those 
Christian centuries in which the practice of immersion 
ceased, and that it was reserved for the 17th century to 
give birth to the true and pure Church of baptized saints. 
The most serious difficulty in the department of 
worship, is in the observance of the sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper. Here diversity of doctrine determines 
to some extent the ceremonies that are used. The 
objections that the Puritans made against the cere- 
mony of kneeling have been removed by time. No 
one would impute to the members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church any adoration of the bread and the 
wine, such as was made by Crypto-Roman Catholics in 
the Church of England in the sixteenth century. The 
Presbyterian method of sitting at tables has been gen- 
erally abandoned on account of its great inconvenience. 
The present fashion of sitting in pews during the cele- 
bration is a modern practice that has little to recom- 
mend it. It might be well to return to the more reverent 
postures of kneeling or standing in the solemn partak- 
ing of the Lord's Supper. In the Protestant Episcopal 
Church, the ceremonies allow people of widely different 
views to partake of the same bread and wine in the 
same service. In the Evangelical churches of Germany, 
Lutheran and Reformed partake of the same bread and 
the same cup. In the Presbyterian and Congregational 
churches Calvinists and Zvvinglians sit down together at 
the communion feast. I would rather partake of the 
Lord's Supper with one who believed in the real pres- 
ence of Christ, even though he were a Lutheran, than 
commune with one who denied the real presence, even 
though he were a Presbyterian. I see no sufficient 
reason why all of these may not hold their variant 
opinions and yet join in the Supper of the Lord. 



258 BARRIERS. 

" The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion 
of the blood of Christ ? The bread which we break, is it not a 
communion of the body of Christ ? seeing that we, who are many, 
are one bread, one body ; for we all partake of the one bread " 
(i Cor. x. 1 6, 17). 

John Bergius, the court preacher of Brandenburg, well 
said : 

" Whosoever hath this gracious help and presence of Christ 
ever before his eyes, will easily forget that unprofitable strife of 
words about such a presence of an invisible, untouchable, incom- 
prehensible Body, wherein he cannot comfort himselfe, and 
whereof he cannot tell what effect or benefit it hath ; and will 
tremble again and be ashamed before the face of Christ, to con- 
demne or to cast out of Christ's Communion those that heartily 
believe and set before their eyes onely his helpfull and gracious 
effectual presence. Whereas on the contrary it may be justly 
questioned of many, that quarrel so much of Christ's corporal 
being on earth, whether they truely believe that he is in Heaven, 
and doth see and hear and will judge such unchristian conten- 
tions." * 

TRADITIONALISM. 

Traditionalism is another great barrier in the way of 
Christian Union. There are in human nature two forces 
which, like action and reaction, tend to keep everything 
in stability — the conservative and the progressive. 
Either of these apart is hurtful. Their combination is 
a great excellence. There can be no improvement with- 
out progress. There can be no genuine improvement 
unless the previous attainments have been conserved. 
Conservatism is healthful, but it too often reacts until it 
becomes mere Traditionalism. This is at present one of 
the chief barriers to the reunion of Christendom. 

The United States of America contain the largest 
body of Christians in any nation under heaven and the 



* " The Pearle of Peace and Concord," p. 47. 



WHITHER? 259 

greatest variety of ecclesiastical organizations, represent- 
ing nearly all the national Churches of Europe and the 
bodies of Christians dissenting from them. These all 
have entire freedom to develop in accordance with their 
own internal principles and organic life. Here the 
greatest variation in Christendom is to be found. Here, 
then, the problem of Christian Union must be worked 
out. The great variations in Christianity that exist side 
by side in America at the present time are, with few ex- 
ceptions, not of American origin and growth. The 
variations simply reflect the differences that exist in the 
different nations of Europe. They were brought to 
America by the colonists from Europe. In many re- 
spects these American daughters are nearer to the 
mother Churches of Europe of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries than the daughters that have re- 
mained in the original homestead. In America there 
is a tenacious adherence to opinions and customs 
that are regarded in Europe as antiquated. This tra- 
ditionalism is quite remarkable in view of the great 
progress that has been made by the Churches of the 
same faith and order in Europe. 

The Reformed Church exists in two bodies — the Ger- 
man and the Dutch. The differences are chiefly in tra- 
ditional usages, and these are the only things that 
stand in the way of the combination of them both with 
the Presbyterians in one organism. There was a splen- 
did opportunity of combining British Presbyterianism 
with the Reformed churches in 1744, under the advice 
of the Synods of North and South Holland. It failed, 
owing to the strife in the Presbyterian Church and the 
division of the American Presbyterians into two rival 
synods.* Another effort was made soon after the 

* See Briggs' " American Presbyterianism," pp. 284 seq. 



260 BARRIERS. 

American Revolution, but it did not succeed. It is de- 
sirable that these efforts should be speedily renewed. 
There is no doctrinal difficulty in the way, because the 
Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Confession 
are acceptable to both bodies. The liturgical books of 
the Reformed Churches are optional books, and would 
continue so to be in the united Church. The differences 
in usage in other respects are in the government and 
worship of the congregations. Here each congregation 
should be left free to follow its own customs. I can 
see no difficulties that might not be readily removed by 
a conference of divines who really desire the consumma- 
tion of organic union. 

The American churches are in general over-conserva- 
tive in matters of doctrine and worship, but in their 
forms of government and practical religion they have 
adapted themselves to the altered conditions and circum- 
stances of the new world. They collectively bear the 
marks of the American national life. They have com- 
mon features that distinguish them from the churthes 
of Europe, that make them all constituent parts of 
American Christianity. 

In some respects the American churches are tradi- 
tional and in other respects radical when compared with 
the churches of Europe. There is thus an internal in- 
consistency that will ere long produce great changes that 
may be little less than revolutionary. The practical side 
of Christianity will ere long overcome the traditionalism 
in doctrine and worship, and reconstruct it on broader 
lines and in more comprehensive schemes ; so that there 
will be better correspondence between the doctrines and 
worship and the real American Christian life. These 
traditions are those of foreign national Churches thfet 
grew up out of historical circumstances that have long 



WHITHER? 261 

past and that are no longer appropriate to the circum- 
stances of a new age and a new continent. Other tradi- 
tions originated in old conflicts that have passed away, 
leaving no other trace behind than those old banners 
and battle-flags, with which it seems necessary that the 
denominations should parade once in a while. 

ALLIANCES AND FEDERAL UNIONS. 

There is a great movement in the direction of alliances 
of kindred Churches. The Alliance of Reformed Churches 
holding the Presbyterian system embraces all Churches 
of the Reformed faith and Presbyterian order through- 
out the world. They unite on the consensus of the Re- 
formed Confessions. An effort was made to define that 
consensus, but it was clearly seen that such an effort 
must lead to the construction of a new creed, and would 
develop differences and conflicts. It was accordingly 
abandoned. It seems better to leave the work of defin- 
ing that consensus to historians. 

The Episcopal and Methodist Episcopal Churches 
have also constituted world-wide Alliances in a similar 
way. This is a great step in the direction of Christian 
Union. But a greater one should soon be made in an 
alliance of these Alliances in a more general council. 
The Evangelical Alliance has done a good work in the 
past, but it is a voluntary association of kindred spirits, 
and is in no sense a representative body. There can be 
no effective Alliance unless that Alliance represents the 
Churches that constitute it ; in an assembly of delegates 
chosen for conference. The times are well-nigh ripe for 
such an Alliance of the Churches in America ; and we 
may anticipate that there will be such an Alliance for 
tlte Christian world at no very great distance in the 
future. 



262 BARRIERS. 

But these alliances are only preparatory to closer 
union. The Presbyterian and Reformed Churches of 
America are considering whether they may not unite in 
Federal union in some general representative body while 
they preserve their own distinguishing features in differ- 
ent classes, presbyteries and synods. It is probable 
that this ideal will be attained in a few years. 

In the meanwhile the American Episcopal Church has 
issued a proposal for the reunion of Christendom on the 
basis of four terms ; and this proposal has received the 
endorsement of the Lambeth Conference representing 
the Church of England and her daughters. These pro- 
posals, as revised by the Lambeth Conference, are : 

". That, in the opinion of this Conference, the following Arti- 
cles supply a basis on which approach may be by God's blessing 
made toward Home Reunion: (a) The Holy Scriptures of the 
Old and New Testaments, as ' containing all things necessary to 
salvation,' and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith. 
(£>) The Apostles' Creed as the baptismal symbol, and the Nicene 
Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith, (c) The 
two sacraments ordained by Christ Himself — Baptism and the 
Supper of the Lord — ministered with unfailing use of Christ's 
words of Institution, and of the elements ordained by Him. 
{d) The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of 
its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peo- 
ples called of God into the unity of His Church. 

" That this Conference earnestly requests the constituted au- 
thorities of the various branches of our communion, acting, so 
far as may be, in concert with one another, to make it known 
that they hold themselves in readiness to enter into brotherly 
conference (such as that which has already been proposed by the 
Church in the United States of America) with representatives of 
other Christian communions in the English-speaking races, in 
order to consider what steps can be taken either toward corpo- 
rate Reunion or toward such relations as may prepare the way 
for fuller organic unity hereafter. 

" That this Conference recommends as of great importance, in 



WHITHER? 263 

tending to bring about Reunion, the dissemination of informa- 
tion respecting the standards of doctrine and the formularies in 
use in the Anglican Church ; and recommends that information 
be disseminated, on the other hand, respecting the authoritative 
standards of doctrine, worship, and government adopted by the 
other bodies of Christians into which the English-speaking races 
are divided." 

In these Resolutions, the Lambeth Conference adopted 
the movement begun some months since by the House 
of Bishops of the American Episcopal Church, and has 
thereby made it a world-wide movement. If I under- 
stand these terms aright, they are not to be interpreted in 
the special sense of any particular party in the Anglican 
communion, but are to be taken in that sense that is 
common to all of these parties in the Church of England 
and in the American Episcopal Church. Presbyterians 
are entitled to look at them from the point of view of 
the Low-Church and the Broad-Church parties, and it is 
not fair to interpret them as if they involved the special 
position of the High-churchmen. 

Committees of conference have been appointed by 
the several denominations in America on the basis of 
these proposals, and there are good reasons for the hope 
that something may be accomplished. 

I adhere to what I said when these terms were first 
proposed : 

The four terms that are set forth therein as " essential 
to the restoration of unity among the divided branches 
of Christendom," are in my judgment entirely satisfac- 
tory, provided nothing more is meant by their au- 
thors than their language expressly conveys. There is 
room for some difference of interpretation, but these 
terms ought to be received in the same generous 
manner in which they are offered, in the hope that the 



264 BARRIERS. 

differences will be removed by conference and discus- 
sion. 

No Presbyterian can consistently object to (a) " the 
Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the 
revealed Word of God," or (c) " the two sacraments, Bap- 
tism and the Supper of the Lord, administered with un- 
failing use of Christ's words of institution, and of the 
elements ordained by Him." 

It might be objected that (J?) " the Nicene Creed, as 
the sufficient statement of the Christian faith," is too nar- 
row a plank for a summary of Christian doctrine, and 
that it ignores the subsequent history of doctrine in 
Christendom. But Presbyterians can hardly exact from 
other religious bodies the maximum of the Westminster 
Standards. If Episcopalians are willing to waive their 
own doctrinal standards in order to union upon the fun- 
damental creed of Christendom, I do not see with what 
propriety other denominations can refuse to meet them 
on this common platform. It is not proposed that the de- 
nominations should abandon their own symbols of faith, 
but that they should find a common ground for unity. 

The fourth term, (d) " the historic episcopate locally 
adapted in the methods of its administration to the 
varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God 
into the unity of the Church," gives more room for dif- 
ference of opinion. But it is certain if the English 
bishops had offered these terms to the Westminster 
divines, there would have been no separation. The 
English Presbyterians offered to unite on the basis of 
" the reduction of Episcopacy under the form of synod- 
ical government," proposed by Archbishop Ussher, but 
the English bishops declined.* Presbyterians are bound 



* Briggs' " American Presbyterianism," p. 80. 



WHITHER? 2G5 

by their own history to meet the Episcopalians on this 
platform. If the House of Bishops mean to advance 
thus far, they have taken a great step toward the reunion 
of Christendom. The delicate and difficult questions 
involved in the adaptation of the historic Episcopate 
might be removed by friendly conference in the spirit of 
Jesus Christ. 

The House of Bishops say nothing of the Book of 
Common Prayer or the Canons of the Church. We un- 
derstand that the following clause refers to them : " That 
in all things of human ordering or human choice relating 
to modes of worship and discipline or to traditional cus- 
toms, this Church is ready, in the spirit of love and hu- 
mility, to forego all preferences of her own." If this 
reference be correct, this proposal is all that could be 
reasonably required.* 

The work of Christian Union is a work which begins 
in every family, and which rises in greater and greater 
sweeps of influence until it covers the nation and the 
Christian world and is absorbed in the innumerable com- 
pany about the throne of God and the Lamb. 

"All this while hitherto we have striven (long enough) in 
words one against another for Religion with much zeale and 
heat ; it is now high time for us to begin once of all sides to con- 
tend and strive about this ; who can most manifest and exercise 
his Religion and Faith with the best Christian workes and that 
towardes his Adversaries, that one might say to another in the 
words of the Apostle Ja?nes, Shew me thy Faith by thy workes, 
and I will shew thee my Faith by my workes (James ii. 18). This 
would indeed be the most effectual Demonstration, which every 
plain Christian would be able to see, touch, and feel, who other- 
wise cannot so well satisfie himself with a naked Demonstration 
of bare words and arguments." t 



* Presbyterian Review, viii., p. 132. 

t John Bergius, " The Pearle of Peace and Concord," p. 180. London, 1655. 



CHAPTER X. 
Thither. 

We have seen that there is a drift in modern Chris- 
tianity away from the Standards of the Reformation and 
the Symbols of the 16th and 17th centuries; that in 
some respects the leaders of the Churches have hardened 
and sharpened the doctrines by excessive definition in 
the field of Protestant polemics ; that in other respects 
the Churches have fallen back from the high ideals of the 
17th century; that there have been departures from the 
Symbols of Faith into various forms of heterodoxy ; and 
that there are great perplexities in the minds of thought- 
ful Christians of our day. We have also seen that the 
barriers between the denominations, erected chiefly in 
the 17th century, have been broken through, and to a 
large extent, broken down, and that the spirit of Chris- 
tian unity is moving over the troubled waters to bring 
peace and order out of the confusion and chaos of sects. 
W T hither shall we go in our striving? What shall be the 
ideal to which we shall direct our efforts ? What other 
ideal can a Christian man set before him than Jesus 
Christ his Saviour, union and communion with Him, 
complete conformity to His will, and entire assimilation 
to His likeness? What other goal can an earnest scholar 
aim at than real orthodoxy, the truth of God, the whole 
truth and nothing but the truth ? 

Progress in religion, in doctrine, and in life is de- 
manded of our age of the world more than of any previ- 
(266) 



THITHER. 2G7 

ous age. Every Christian should make up his mind to 
follow the guidance of the divine Spirit, who will fulfil 
the promise of the Master and lead us unto all truth. 
There has never been a period in which the scholar had 
such a vast circle of truth in which to study. There has 
never been a time when the Church had such a vast 
work to do for the Master. The possibilities for think- 
ing and for working are wonderful — the ideals set before 
us are magnificent. All other departments of human 
learning are advancing, every other human enterprise is 
pushing with enormous energy. Is the Church of Jesus 
Christ to drift along in the rear, too conservative to make 
any more progress than it is forced to make ; too re- 
actionary to be aggressive, except in attack upon those 
who would excite it by criticism and stimulate it by dis- 
coveries to take its proper place in the advancing host 
of God ? Research, speculation, investigation, inven- 
tion, discovery are everywhere welcomed save in theol- 
ogy. Novelties are everywhere else earnestly sought 
for, but novelties in theology are regarded as little bet- 
ter than heresies. But there are Christian scholars who 
will not pull back with the reactionaries, who refuse to 
sleep with the conservatives, who decline to drift idly 
with the stream ; who are determined to steer toward 
the goal of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ ; who 
will use all the energy of human nature and all the re- 
sults of modern learning in theological research, in re- 
ligious discovery, and in ethical invention, looking to 
their enthroned Saviour for strength, and following the 
guidance of the divine Spirit in quest of the truth, the 
sanctifying truth of God. 

Progressive theology as the true orthodoxy has to 
consider three classes of doctrines: (i) those that have 
been defined by the consensus of Christendom ; (2) those 



268 WHITHER? 

that are in dispute between the Christian Churches ; and 
(3) those that still need investigation and which have 
not yet been defined by the consensus or the discord of 
Christendom. 

THE CONSENSUS OF CHRISTENDOM. 

The first class of doctrines that we have to consider 
are those which have been defined by the consensus 
of Christendom. These may be regarded as the solid 
attainments of Christianity. It is not at all likely 
that these will be changed by progressive theology. 
They will be modified to some extent by the light shed 
upon them from other doctrines, but such modification 
will be unessential. Those doctrines upon which Roman 
Catholics and Protestants agree are the basis of progress 
and the foundation upon which the Reunion of Chris- 
tendom must take place. The Roman Catholic Church 
and the Protestant Churches are agreed as to nine-tenths 
or more of the contents of Christianity. Until the year 
of the Reformation they were one Church. All the gen- 
uine achievements of fifteen Christian centuries are com- 
mon property. The Reformers were born in the me- 
diaeval Church, were baptized therein, were trained in 
its sacred doctrines and sacraments, and many of them 
were ordained by its pious bishops. The Reformers de- 
nounced the papacy as a hierarchical constitution, but 
they did not deny the Church. They were forced to 
separate from the Church of Rome, but they did not 
create a new Church ; they reformed the Church of North- 
ern Europe, while the Church in Southern Europe re- 
mained unreformed under the tyranny of Papacy. Those 
so-called Protestants who refuse to recognize the Roman 
Catholic Church as a true Church of Jesus Christ, are 
guilty of heresy and schism. Such a theory leaves 



THITHER. 269 

Protestantism hanging in the air with fifteen centuries 
of Church History beneath it, cuts it off from any con- 
nection with historical Christianity, makes it a new re- 
ligion of the 16th century, and gives over to the devil 
the ancient and mediaeval Church with all its splendid 
array of saints and martyrs. It is a stab at the vitals of 
any Christian Church to cut it off from the one body of 
Christ and sever it from the great tree of life that was 
planted at Pentecost and that has grown like the cedar 
twig of Ezekiel's vision until it has well-nigh filled the 
earth. 

IS ROME AN ALLY? 

Protestants and Roman Catholics are agreed as to the 
essentials of Christianity. Our common faith is based 
on the so-called Apostles' Creed, our worship on the 
Lord's Prayer, our morals upon the Ten Command- 
ments and the Sermon on the Mount. Who will venture 
to say that the Roman Catholic Church is not as faith- 
ful to these foundations of our common religion as 
Protestants? Taking our stand on the Apostles' Creed 
we must add to the articles of faith on which we are agreed 
all the doctrinal achievements of the Church for fifteen 
centuries, the doctrine of the unity of God, the person 
and work of Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, original sin 
and human depravity, salvation by divine grace, the ab- 
solute need of the atonement of Jesus Christ. On all 
these great doctrines of our religion Romanism and 
Protestantism are one. Here we are allies, and it is our 
common task to proclaim these doctrines to the heathen 
world, and to overcome by them all forms of irreligion 
and infidelity in Christian lands. Differences about 
justification by faith, and salvation by the divine grace 
alone, and the authority of the Church as regards the 



270 WHITHER ? 

determination of the canon of Scripture and its inter- 
pretation, ought not to prevent our co-operation and 
alliance in the great work of proclaiming the common 
faith. Our conflict over the doctrines in which we differ 
would be more fruitful in good results, if our contest 
should be based upon concord and alliance in the com- 
mon faith ; if our contest could be narrowed to the real 
points of difference, and conducted in a brave, chival- 
rous, and loving manner. 

Taking our stand upon the Lord's Prayer, we observe 
that we are agreed as to the greater part of Christian 
worship. We worship God in common, in morning and 
evening assemblies, by prayer, songs of praise, the read- 
ing and preaching of the Scriptures, and the celebration 
of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. 
The matter of this worship is for the most part common 
in both these great bodies of Christians. I have heard 
sermons in Roman Catholic churches in Europe which 
were more evangelical and less objectionable than many 
sermons I have heard in leading Protestant Churches in 
Berlin, London, and New York. It is well known that 
the Protestant books of liturgy contain a considerable 
amount of material derived from the old mass books, 
and they are all the more valuable for that. Roman 
Catholic Baptism has many superstitions connected with 
it, but the essentials of baptism are there in the bap- 
tism by the minister in the name of the Holy Trinity.* 
Roman Catholic observance of the Lord's Supper is con- 
nected with the worship of the materials of the Supper 
under the doctrine that they are really the body and 
blood of the divine Lord ; but who can deny that pious 
souls by faith really partake of the body and blood of 



* See pp. 183 seq. 



THITHER. 271 

Christ in this holy sacrament, notwithstanding the errors 
in which it is enveloped? 

In all matters of worship we are in essential accord 
with Roman Catholics, and we ought not to hesitate to 
make an alliance with them, so far as possible, to maintain 
the sanctity of the Sabbath as a day of worship, and to 
proclaim to the world the necessity of worshipping God 
in His house, and of becoming members of His Church 
by baptism, and of seeking union and communion with 
the Saviour by Christian worship, the study of the 
Scriptures, and the observance of the Lord's Supper. 
With this recognition of concord, Protestants may de- 
bate with Romanists in a friendly manner, and seek to 
overcome their errors, remove the excrescences they 
have heaped upon that simple worship in the spirit and 
in truth, which seems to us more in accordance with 
the Scriptures and the wishes of our Saviour. In the 
great constituent parts of prayer — invocation, adora- 
tion, thanksgiving, confession of sin, petition, interces- 
sion and consecration, — Roman Catholics and Protestants 
are in agreement. In Christian song the differences 
are still less. If our hymn-books were stripped of hymns 
from the ancient and mediaeval Church, and from modern 
Roman Catholics, they would be bare indeed. 

In the sphere of Christian morals we take our com- 
mon stand on the Ten Commandments and the Sermon 
on the Mount. Romanism and Protestantism are agreed 
as to the vast majority of all questions of morals. It 
is true there is a great deal of immorality in the Roman 
Catholic Church in some countries, and we think it may be 
shown that as a rule Protestantism is productive of better 
morals than Romanism ; but this, after all, is a question 
of more or less, and to say the least, Protestantism has 
little to boast of. 



272 WHITHER? 

" To-day, as related to heathen peoples and religions, the 
Judas Iscariot of Christianity is Christendom itself. At first, 
Christianity had no Christendom at all behind it ; had behind it 
only the incomparable personality and teachings of Jesus of 
Nazareth. Peter, Paul and John had no Constantine nor Charle- 
magne nor Henry VIII. to carry. There was then no Christian 
England, forcing opium on heathen China ; no Christian Amer- 
ica, driving Chinamen across the continent from San Francisco 
to New York ; no sailors, Greek, Catholic or Protestant, defiling 
every seaport of every continent and island. If Christendom 
were only Christian really, how much longer would China prob- 
ably be Confucian? or Japan Buddhistic? or India Brahmanic ? 
or Turkey Mohammedan ? " * 

On all these practical questions of Christianity it is of 
the highest importance that the Roman Catholic Church 
and Protestant Churches should make an alliance. Their 
joint efforts would have an influence upon public and 
private morals such as the world has not yet witnessed. 
We may agree to differ and debate on all questions 
where there is discord. But it is folly for us to waste 
our energies in antagonism, when we are agreed on the 
vast majority of questions that come before the public, 
and when co-operation and alliance would be productive 
of such vast good. 

The differences between the Roman Catholic Church 
and the Protestant Churches since the Reformation con- 
sist chiefly in two things: (i), The Roman Catholic 
Church declined to follow the Protestant reformers when 
they reformed the Churches in Northern Europe. (2), 
It took a conservative position and refused to advance 
into the higher doctrinal and ethical development of 
Protestantism. On these two principles all the differ- 
ences in faith and practice rest. Here the battle for the 



* R. D. Hitchcock, "Eternal Atonement," p. 298. New York: Charles 
Scribner's Sons, 1888. 



TIIITHER. 273 

truth and right must go on until the one side or the 
other achieve the victory, or rather until both are recon- 
ciled in something higher and better, in a new and 
greater Reformation of the Church, when the sections 
of truth conserved by each shall be pieced together in 
the whole truth ; and the errors of both that cannot be 
assimilated will be cast aside. 

THE DISSENSUS OF CHRISTENDOM. 

The second class of doctrines that we have to consider, 
are those in regard to which the Christian Churches are 
divided. We have already studied these in the previous 
chapter, and have seen that the differences are of less 
importance than they used to be, now that Protestant 
polemics has been overwhelmed by irenics. Accordingly 
it is in favor in some quarters to gather up all the ques- 
tions of main importance upon which there is concord, 
especially in Protestantism, and ignore the old questions 
of discord, and thus construct a consensus as a basis of 
Christian union. 

It is thought by some that a simple creed is the path- 
way to Christian union. I shall not deny that such a 
creed is desirable. It might be well to formulate the 
consensus of Christendom, the consensus of Protestant- 
ism, the consensus of the Reformed Churches, and so 
on. This will all be accomplished in good time by the 
science of Symbolics. These are historical questions for 
scholarly investigation, and not for official action of 
Christian Churches. 

But true theological progress cannot content itself 
with such a consensus. The questions debated between 
the Churches since the Reformation are important ques- 
tions. Our fathers did not think and labor and suffer 
in vain. The creeds of the Reformation are the precious 



274 WHITHER ? 

symbols of our faith. We cannot give them up. They 
are the battle-flags that have been carried in many a 
field of intellectual and moral contest, and they bear the 
signs of conflict and victory. The battle must be fought 
out to the end. Truth is mighty, and in the end, it will 
prevail. The battle will disclose the higher principles 
in whose equity alone reconciliation can be made. 

The Westminster Standards are the banners of Puri- 
tanism, the most precious doctrinal achievement of the 
17th century. Let us never fail to honor them and 
maintain them ! But let us not put them in a false po- 
sition, or prove unfaithful to their trust. Let us never 
forget the principle of liberty of conscience for which 
the Puritan fathers fought and died. They have en- 
shrined it in the Westminster Confession.* They do not 
claim infallibility, inerrancy, or completion. They do 
not propose to speak the final word in theology ; they 
tell us that, " The purest churches under heaven are sub- 
ject both to mixture and error," f and that " all synods or 
councils since the apostles' times, whether general or par- 
ticular, may err, and many have erred ; therefore they are 
not to be made the rule of faith and practice, but to be 
used as a help in both." J Those are not true disciples of 
the Westminster faith who would confine Congregation- 
alism and Presbyterianism for all time to the definitions 
of the symbols, and make them the barriers to progress. 
They thereby transgress the Standards themselves in 
their essential principles and their express language. 
We must recognize that there are inadequate state- 
ments and even errors of doctrine in the Westminster 
Standards and the great creeds of the Reformation. 
We should be ready to adjust them to the higher knowl- 

* See p. 159. + " Westminster Confession," xxv. 5. 

X " Westminster Confession," xxxi. 3. 



TnrrnER. 275 

edge of our times and the still higher knowledge that 
the coming period of progress in theology will give us. 

The only hope of reconciliation of differences, and of 
removal of errors, is by advance into the whole truth of 
religion, doctrine, and morals. The differences between 
Romanism and Protestantism are, as we have seen, 
chiefly that Romanism declined to give up its errors and 
to advance into the new truth of the Reformation. So 
it is that the differences between the churches of Prot- 
estantism ^re due to the same essential reasons. Even 
Protestantism has retained not a few mediaeval errors 
while it has also multiplied its own errors. Prot- 
estant churches have all come to a halt in their prog- 
ress. The differences between the denominations are 
partly in errors retained and partly in progress de- 
clined. Harmony and reconciliation are in the pathway 
of progress. 

Theological progress is not in the direction of sim- 
plicity, but of variety and complexity. We cannot re- 
treat in theological definition ; we must advance, in this 
scientific age. The Apostles' Creed represents the sim- 
ple faith of the early Church ; we cannot ignore Chris- 
tian history and go back to that. The Ante-Nicene 
Church was crude in its theology ; we cannot fall back 
on the Nicene Creed as a complete definition of Chris- 
tianity. The inheritance of the Truth is more precious 
than external Unity. Progress is to be made by more 
exact definitions in theological science, not by suppres- 
sion of truth and ignoring of differences in order to a 
superficial and transient harmony. Every Christian 
should follow the guidance of the divine Spirit into all 
truth, and regard every truth, even the smallest, as un- 
speakably precious ; and yet we should have in mind the 
proportions of truth, and bear on our banner the golden 



276 WHITHER? 

words of Rupertus Meldenius, In necessariis unitas, in 
non necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas. 

The chief reasons of difference are imperfect knowl- 
edge and an indisposition to follow the truth sincerely 
and wholly without regard to consequences. A higher 
knowledge will in time remove the differences. The 
barriers seem impassable when we keep in the low levels 
of doctrine and life. When we climb the mountains 
and ascend the peaks of Christianity the fences and 
hedges of human conceits are the merest trifles. 

NEW DOCTRINES. 

The third group of doctrines that now confronts us 
consists of those which have not been sufficiently con- 
sidered, and which have only partially been defined by the 
Churches. Here is the field in which progressive theology 
is chiefly at work at present, and here are the doctrines 
that are to be opened up in the future. The symbols of the 
Churches do not define them, and Christian scholars can- 
not be restrained from using the resources of modern 
learning, criticism, invention, speculation, and logical 
development in their investigation and statement. 

The confession of a church is its constitution. It re- 
stricts liberty and binds the minister to the definitions 
that have been made either in strict or liberal subscrip- 
tion. But it is also a pledge and guarantee of liberty of 
investigation and of statement in all matters upon which 
the faith of the church has not been defined. The faith 
of the church cannot be determined by majorities in ec- 
clesiastical courts or by the dictation of ecclesiastical 
demagogues or the theses of little popes in the different 
denominations. The big pope is worthy of much greater 
consideration than a thousand little ones. Protestant- 



THITHER. 277 

ism knows no other master than Jesus Christ, the King 
and Head of the Church. 

The Westminster Standards are not the barriers to 
progress. They are the barriers to reaction. They are 
the stepping-stones of progress ; they guide the advance 
in Christian theology. They show what has been accom- 
plished in the past ; they point out the matters of differ- 
ence and controversy; they open the questions undeter- 
mined. The statements of the Westminster Symbols 
are by no means perfect. They are capable of revision 
and improvement. But progress is not in that direc- 
tion. That is a work for the rear-guard of the Church. 
True progress is made by advance into new fields, and in 
an irenic discussion of the points of difference between 
the denominations. 

" What is Christianity ? This question is put and pressed to- 
day as never before. And sectarian answers are behind the time. 
No Creed of Orient or Occident, ancient or modern, has spoken 
the final word. Scientific theology has still its errand and its 
rights, though the more we refine, the more we differ. The time 
.vill come, when the more we differ, the better we shall be agreed : 
differing in the smaller, agreeing in the larger things ; far apart 
in the spreading branches, knit together in the sturdy trunk."* 

BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 

One of the freshest fields for discussion in our day is 
the Bible itself. The Bible is the wonder of the world, 
a treasure of truth for all ages. It is a surprise of mod- 
ern scholarship that after so many centuries so little is 
known of the Bible. The Bible has become a new 
book to modern Biblical scholars — for they have stripped 
off the crust of traditional theories and found it to be 
the richest mine of heavenly truth. The modern study 
of the Bible has taken the form of Biblical criticism. 



* R. D. Hitchcock, " Eternal Atonement," p. 84. 



278 WHITHER? 

This is a critical age of the world, and recent criticisms 
have been stronger and more comprehensive than any- 
previous criticisms. Criticism is a method of knowledge ; 
it reviews and re-examines all the processes of human 
thought and tests all its products. Man is fallible. Even 
the best of men are so liable to error that we cannot be 
sure of the truth of their work until we have reviewed 
it for ourselves and tested it at every point. It is nec- 
essary that we should know the truth. We cannot rest 
with confidence upon anything that is uncertain. Crit- 
icism is the test of the certainty of knowledge and the 
method of its verification. Every scholar in our days 
who would be exact in his methods and sure of his re- 
sults will test his own work by the methods of criticism ; 
and he will not accept the work of another until he has 
submitted it to the same tests himself, or has seen it 
tested by others. 

The scholars of previous centuries were not so exact 
in their methods and were less careful in their work. 
They have handed down an immense mass of learning, 
the most of which they received by tradition from others. 
They accepted it without criticism, and they transmitted 
it as they received it. The modern scholar cannot ac- 
cept this mass without criticism any more than he can 
accept the new learning of the present age. It is neces- 
sary to pass it all through the fires of criticism before 
we can give it our confidence and build upon it for the 
future. 

Criticism has a twofold work ; it is destructive of error, 
and it is constructive of truth. Its first work is destruct- 
ive. The error must be destroyed before the truth can 
be given its place. This is the easier work of criticism. 
It is less difficult to pull down than to build up ; to see 
a fault than to appreciate an excellence ; to kill an error 



THITHER. 279 

than to quicken a germ of truth. We are not surprised 
that the great majority of critics have been destructive, 
and that the chief work of criticism, thus far, has been 
the destruction of error ; but constructive criticism has 
not been wanting. 

i. There can be no doubt that recent criticisms have 
considerably weakened the evidences from miracles and 
predictive prophecy. To many minds it would be easier 
to believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures and the 
divinity of Jesus Christ if there were no such things as 
Miracles and Prediction in the sacred Scriptures. The 
older apologetic made too much of the external marvels 
of miracle-working and sought to find in history the ful- 
fillment of the minute details of prediction. But it has 
been found easier to prove the divinity of Christ without 
miracles. Belief in miracles needs to be sustained by 
faith in Jesus Christ. It is necessary to prove the in- 
spiration of the Scriptures as the product of the spirit 
of prophecy before we can advance with profit into the 
special field of prediction. Even the Scriptures them- 
selves recognize miracle-working and prediction in false 
prophets, and teach us to distinguish the true miracle 
and the true prediction from the false by their internal 
character and their conformity to truth and fact. Re- 
cent criticisms have brought these lines of evidences 
into better accord with the representations of the Bible 
itself. 

The Old Testament is full of Theophanies ; and in' 
the New Testament there are many Christophanies and 
Pneumatophanies. These manifestations of God in the 
forms of space and time and in the sphere of physical 
nature are of vast importance in the unfolding of divine 
revelation. These are the centres from which miracles 
and prophecies flow. If there were such theophanies or 



280 WHITHER? 

divine manifestations in the successive stages of divine 
revelation, then we should expect miracles in the phys- 
ical world and prophecy in the world of man. If Jesus 
Christ is God manifest in the flesh, then prophecy and 
miracles are exactly what we should expect so long as 
He abode in the flesh in this world. If the Holy Spirit 
was given to the apostles on the day of Pentecost, and 
He was present with the churches of the apostles in the 
peculiar manner of external manifestations of pneuma- 
tophany, such as are described in the New Testament, 
we are not surprised at the occurrence of miracle-work- 
ing and prophecy during that period ; and it seems to 
be the most natural thing in the w T orld that when these 
divine manifestations ceased, miracle-working and proph- 
ecy ceased with them. If then, on the one side, recent 
criticisms have weakened the independent value of the 
evidences from miracles and prediction, they have, on the 
other side, given something vastly better in their place. 
They have called the attention to the presence of God 
with His people in external manifestations of theophany 
to guide the advancing stages of the history of redemp- 
tion. Plere is the citadel of our religion, to which all its 
lines of evidence converge, the centre of the entire reve- 
lation and religion from which prophecy and miracle- 
working issue in all their variety of form. The evidences 
from miracles and prophecy gain in strength when they 
are placed in their true relations to the theophany in 
which the unity of the evidence is found. 

2. Another fault of the older apologetic was in laying 
too much stress upon the external evidence and in neg- 
lecting the internal evidence for the inspiration and the 
canonicity of Scripture. The Roman Catholic Church 
bases the authority of the Scriptures on the authority of 
the Church. The Reformers rejected this external au- 



THITHER. 281 

thority and found the evidences for the Scriptures in the 
Scriptures themselves, in the voice of the living God 
speaking to the believer in them and through them. As 
Luther said, " The Church cannot give any more author- 
ity or power than it has of itself. A council cannot 
make that to be of Scripture which is not by nature of 
Scripture." * The later Reformed and Lutheran scholas- 
tics abandoned the position of the Reformers and fell 
back upon the external evidence of tradition in the syn- 
agogue and the church. In this they committed a sad 
blunder, which greatly injured the evidences for the in- 
spiration and the canonicity of the Bible. Recent criti- 
cisms have weakened this line of evidence and given us 
something much better in its place. They have revived 
the views of the Reformers and the Puritans and have 
strengthened the lines of the internal evidences. Here, 
again, the order of evidence has been changed. We do 
not first prove canonicity, and then the inspiration of the 
Scriptures, but the reverse : we first prove the inspira- 
tion of the Scriptures, and then the canonicity is a mat- 
ter of course. 

3. The traditional evidence also overestimated the ex- 
ternal authority of the Bible, in accordance with the 
familiar saying that the Bible, the Bible alone, is the 
religion of Protestants. This saying is, however, a cari- 
cature of the Protestant position. The Protestant relig- 
ion is the religion of Jesus Christ, as He is revealed to 
us in the Bible. The Reformers recognized the living 
God, the risen and reigning Christ, in the Bible ; and 
they regarded the Scriptures as a means of grace to 
bring Christ to us and to bring us to Christ. The later 
theology neglected the doctrine of the Scriptures as a 



* " Disputatio exc. theolog. Joh. Eccii et Lutheri hist.," iii., 129 seq. 



282 WHITHER? 

means of grace, and laid undue stress on the doctrine of 
their inspiration. It substituted the authority of the 
external word of the letter of Scripture, for the internal 
word of the Master of the Scripture. Recent criticisms 
have in part overcome this fault. They have pointed 
out the fault of building our faith on a book, instead of 
the living God and Saviour. They have called more at- 
tention to the God of the Old Testament and the Christ 
of the New Testament as the very substance, the light 
and glory of the Bible. 

4. Recent criticisms have been very great in the de- 
partments of the text and the literature of the Bible. 
These have been reorganized as branches of science, with 
exact methods and well-defined principles, which lead to 
definite and reliable results. There can be no doubt 
that there has been a large amount of destructive criti- 
cism here which has disturbed the faith and unsettled 
the convictions of multitudes. 

The authority of the old textus receptus of the New 
Testament has been destroyed, but criticism has given 
in its place the critical New Testaments of Tischendorf, 
and Westcott and Hort. The authority of the Maso- 
retic text of the Old Testament has been undermined ; 
but critics the world over are laboring to secure a better 
text of the Old Testament ; and they will succeed in a 
reasonable time. The doctrine of verbal inspiration has 
been destroyed, and it has been shown that inspiration 
lies back of the external form or letter of the words and 
is in the inner word, the substance, and the sense. Thus 
the apologist has been relieved of the peril of resting 
the whole doctrine of inspiration upon the adjective 
verbal, and the critics have led Christian scholars back to 
the sounder position of the great Protestant Reformers.* 

* See p. 64. 



THITHER. 2S3 

5. In the department of the Higher Criticism recent 
criticisms have shown that the traditional theories that 
David wrote all the Psalter, Solomon all the Wisdom 
Literature, and Moses all the Pentateuch, are untenable. 
These theories are without sufficient historical support, 
and are against the internal evidence of the writings 
themselves. Those who rest their faith in the inspiration 
of these writings upon their attachment to the names of 
these holy men of Israel have been disturbed by recent 
criticisms, and so far their lines of evidences for the inspira- 
tion of the Scriptures have been destroyed. But recent 
criticisms have also shown that the Psalter is the product 
of the religious experience of God's people in the many 
centuries of the history of Israel ; that the literature of 
Hebrew Wisdom is the fruit of the wise men of Israel of 
many generations; and that the Pentateuch is composed 
of four parallel narratives with four codes of legislation, 
resembling, in many respects, the four Gospels in their 
characteristic differences and harmony. 

The older scholars paid no attention to the literary 
features of the Bible. They did not distinguish poetry 
from prose, and dealt with the literature of Wisdom very 
much as they used the work of the chronicler. They 
refused to find any fiction in the Scriptures, and used 
the whole Bible as if it were a law book, a quarry for 
doctrines. But the Higher Criticism of recent times 
has carefully distinguished poetry from prose, and has 
discovered a large amount of poetry in the historical 
books of the Old Testament and the New Testament. 
It has classified the poetry and studied it in its structure 
and in its varieties of form. It has distinguished the 
several kinds of history and prophecy, and has not been 
blind to the beauties of fiction and the proprieties of its 
use. And thus the Old Testament has become a new 



284 WHITHER? 

book, vastly more attractive to the people, as well as to 
the scholar. This enhanced appreciation of the literary 
excellence of the Bible has opened up fresh lines of evi- 
dence for its inspiration. 

6. Modern criticism has established two entirely new 
theological disciplines, namely, Biblical Theology and 
Contemporary History of the Bible. Contemporary His- 
tory sets the Bible in the midst of the external history 
of the world in which the history of redemption took 
place. It enables us to see the influence of other na- 
tions with their literature, religion, and civilization 
upon Israel, the people of God. It gives us a test 
by which to examine the Biblical records. On the 
whole, a flood of light has been thrown upon the Bible. 
Many old difficulties have been removed, but other and 
more difficult questions have been raised. The results 
have very much changed the lines of Christian evi- 
dence, and are likely to change them still more in the 
future. 

Biblical theology traces the development of the divine 
revelation contained in the Bible. It shows us the 
several temperaments of human nature, such as we find 
everywhere in history, reflected there in differences of 
type and various points of view from which the religion 
of the Bible is presented. The variety of the Bible is 
very great in its religious, doctrinal, and ethical concep- 
tions. There are those who press these variations into 
inconsistencies, and even contradictions, so as to destroy 
the credibility of the Bible. But recent criticisms have 
shown that these varieties combine in a higher unity. 
The harmony of the Bible, coming from so many differ- 
ent authors, in different periods of the world, writing in 
different languages and from different points of view, 
vastly strengthens the evidences for the credibility and 



THITHER. 285 

the inspiration of the Scriptures as an organic whole, the 
product of one divine Spirit. 

In all directions recent criticisms have been destruct- 
ive of false methods and traditional errors, and to this 
extent have disarranged the lines of Christian evidence 
and wrought destruction. But, on the other hand, re- 
cent criticisms have constructed better methods, have 
revived the older and better doctrine of the Reforma- 
tion, and have led to a closer study of the contents of 
the Bible. Biblical criticism teaches that the Scriptures 
are to be interpreted from their centre, and no longer 
from a small section of their circumference. 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 

The second great field for debate in our times is the 
Future Life. Here the consensus of Christendom is 
little, the dissensus is great, the questions undefined 
greater still. Dogmaticians have enlarged upon the 
Creeds, and the popular theology has filled up the out- 
lines of the future life with crude notions and fantastic 
theories. But the Christian Church is not responsible 
for these, and no scholar will respect them sufficiently to 
regard them in any sense as the barriers to research. The 
same conflict is waged here between the progressives 
and conservatives as in the department of Biblical Criti- 
cism. The discussion leaps the bounds of the denomi- 
nations and the lines of battle are entirely independent 
of churchly considerations. 

The future life has been a blank or else a terror to 
most Protestants and the comfortable hopes inspired by 
the New Testament have not been enjoyed. The study 
of the future state in recent times has exposed the faults 
of the older dogmaticians. It has shown that the doc- 



286 WHITHER? 

trine of a private judgment at death has no support in 
the Scriptures or the Creeds, and that it obstructed and 
obscured the doctrine of the dies ircz, the ultimate 
judgment of the world.* It has shown that the current 
theology confuses and confounds the hell and heaven of 
the middle state and the hell and heaven of the ultimate 
state after the day of judgment, and it has accordingly 
made the middle state more of a reality to many minds.f 
It has held up the light of Christian ethics and shown 
that the doctrine of immediate sanctification at death is 
contrary to the Scripture and the Creeds, and has filled 
the middle state with ethical contents as a place for 
Christian sanctification.^: It has called attention to the 
fact that Jesus Christ knows of but one unpardonable 
sin, the sin against the Holy Spirit ; and asks what is its 
significance in view of the middle state. It has revived 
the doctrine of the Apostles' Creed, of the descent of 
Jesus into hades, His preaching to the imprisoned spirits 
and His redemption of souls from the ancient abode of 
the dead. It has called attention to the inconsistency 
into which the Church has drifted in the new doctrine 
of the universal salvation of infants, and has demanded 
that this doctrine shall be considered in some way, so as 
to correspond with the Protestant doctrine of the order 
of salvation. § It has so pressed the awfulness of the 
doctrine of the eternal damnation of the heathen world, 
exceeding the Christian world by hundreds of millions, 
that the older doctrine of the damnation of all heathen 
has been abandoned, and efforts have been made to find 
some mode of relief by which some or many of the 
heathen may be saved by the grace of God.| All these 
questions are now in dispute. Men are seeking relief by 

* See p. 195. t See pp. 207 seg. % See p. 147. 

§ See pp. 133 seq. \ See p. 118. 



THITHER. 287 

the doctrine of the extension of redemption into the 
middle state, by conditional immortality, by annihilation 
of the wicked, and by reaction to the Roman Catholic 
doctrine of purgatory. The interest in these questions 
of the future life is wide-spread and is increasing. 
There must be liberty of investigation and room for 
differences in the transition period through which we are 
passing. The results will be of incalculable advantage 
to the Church — for when the future life has become 
more real, more certain, more fixed, in the hopes and 
anticipations of men, this life will gain its significance as 
a preparation and vestibule of the better life to come, 
Christians will live in hope, expectation, and desire, and 
this hope will work mightily in the consecration and 
sanctification of men. 

In the discussion of the First things and the Last 
things, Protestantism is now engaged upon the great 
things of our religion. The First things will strengthen 
our faith by establishing it on the living God of the 
Bible instead of upon the letters of a book. The Last 
things will inspire our hope by fixing it upon the en- 
throned Christ, the holy catholic Church, and the com- 
munion of saints in that realm to which we are all 
going after a brief interval in this world. 

THE HOLY LIFE. 

The third great question of debate at the present 
time is Sanctification and the ( related topics of Christian 
Ethics, Repentance, and a Holy Life. If Puritans and 
Presbyterians had been faithful to the Westminster 
Standards they would have led in this discussion from 
the vantage ground given in the Puritan doctrine of 
sanctification.* But their unfaithfulness has lost them 

* See Chap. vi. 



238 WHITHER? 

this advantage, so that the question of sanctification 
has also become a discussion that pervades more or less 
all denominations. And what more encouraging sign 
for the future can we have than the study of a holy life ? 
This is that which is to bind the First things and the 
Last things together. The Church has halted too long 
at the beginning of the Christian life, as if our entire re- 
demption consisted in regeneration, justification, simple 
faith, and imputed righteousness. Is it not high time 
that we should give our attention to deeds of repent- 
ance, live as children of God and heirs of heaven, pur- 
sue sanctification and a holy life, and aim at the comple- 
tion of the kingdom of God in this world, not only by 
the conversion of all men, but by the sanctification of 
ourselves and others? The imputed righteousness of 
Christ ought to stimulate men to share in the imparta- 
tion of that righteousness in the grace of sanctification ; 
and if we truly believe in Him, fix our hopes upon Him 
as our Redeemer, we should be transformed into His 
image. It is high time that a holy life of sanctification 
should be the ideal life for which every Christian should 
strive. The error that sanctification cannot be accom- 
plished in this life paralyzes every effort.* The error 
that sanctification will be immediately completed at 
death as by a magical act of God encourages men to 
sluggishness in their sanctification in this life.f These 
errors must be banished from our theology and our life, 
the minds of men must be fixed upon our enthroned 
Saviour as the ideal of holiness ; and if they once learn 
that their everlasting destiny depends upon their con- 
formity to the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and that it 
is the design of the divine plan of redemption that they 

' * See p. 148. t See p. 147. 



thither. 289 

should become Christlike, they will make this the one 
end and aim of their lives. 

Inseparably connected with the doctrine of sanctifi 
cation are the doctrines of the heavenly reign of Christ, 
of the kingdom of God, of the life in the middle state, 
and of the second advent, and many other kindred doc- 
trines that need the special attention of the men of our 
times. Now, these are the questions in which all the 
Churches of Christendom are alike interested, whither 
every one of them needs to direct its attention in order 
to its own internal development. And these are the 
doctrines that will, when once determined, shed that 
light upon the questions of discord that is so greatly 
needed by all the churches, and which will harmonize 
them all in the bright sunlight of the whole truth of 
God. 

THE UNITY OF CHRIST'S CHURCH. 

Christian Union has become one of the burning ques- 
tions of the day. Unity is a grand ideal of the Church 
of Christ. The Church, built on the rock against which 
the gates of Hades will not prevail, is one church. The 
kingdom into whose gates the disciples are admitted, and 
whose king is Christ, is and can be but one kingdom.* 
Jesus Christ, the true vine, is the source of life and fruit- 
fulness to all the branches. Without vital union and 
abiding communion with Him there is no spiritual life; 
and all the branches are, through Him, in organic union 
with one another.f The good Shepherd promised His 
sheep that " they shall become one flock, one shepherd." % 
And accordingly our Saviour prayed for His disciples: 

" That they may all be one ; even as thou, Father, art in me, 
and I in thee, that they also may be in us : that the world may 



* Matt. xvi. 18-20. f John xv. 1-8. % John x. 16. 



290 WHITHER ? 

believe that thou didst send me. And the glory which thou hast 
given me I have given unto them ; that they may be one, even 
as we are one : I in them, and thou in me, that they may be per- 
fected in one." * 

Our Saviour seldom employs the term church. He 
ordinarily employs the kingdom, flock, and vine, the 
familiar terms of the Old Testament prophets. These 
terms alike, indicate in their Old Testament usage, the 
unity of the people of God. They are one people, one 
congregation, one flock, one vine, one kingdom. The 
division of the Jewish nation was a divine judgment for 
sin. The reunion of Israel and Judah is an abiding hope 
of prophecy, f The apostles hold forth this same ideal 
of the unity of Christ's Church. They do not so often 
use the term kingdom. There is a tendency to use the 
kingdom more with reference to the kingdom of glory 
that comes with the second advent, while they use the 
church more frequently instead of the kingdom of re- 
demption. However, the epistle to the Colossians rep- 
resents that the heavenly Father " delivered us out of 
the power of darkness, and translated us into the king- 
dom of the Son of His love"; J and the epistle to the 
Hebrews teaches that Christians have received " a king- 
dom that cannot be shaken." § 

Peter applies the covenant at Horeb to Christians as 
an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people 
for God's own possession ; and combines with it the 
figure of the spiritual house, the holy temple built up of 
living stones on Jesus Christ, the corner-stone. || He 
also speaks of the flock of God and the chief shepherd.^" 
The synonymous expressions, people, royal priesthood, 

* John xvii. 21-23. t Briggs' " Messianic Prophecy," pp. 165 seq. 

\ Col. i. 13. § Heb. xii. 27. \ 1 Peter ii. 4-9. \ 1 Peter v. 2-4. 



TUITIIER. 29] 

flock, and temple combine to represent the unity and 
spirituality of the Church of Jesus Christ. 

The Apocalypse* and the epistle to the Hebrews f 
agree in representing the body of Christians as the city 
of God, the New Jerusalem. This is also a conception 
of Old Testament prophecy.^ The epistle to the He- 
brews uses the city of God in parallelism with " general 
assembly and church of the first-born." § 

Saint Paul, in his epistle to the Ephesians, heaps up 
a number of representations. Those who were alienated 
from the commonwealth of Israel have been united to it 
by breaking down the partitioned wall. Both Jew and 
Gentile have been reconciled in one body unto God. 
They are fellow-citizens of the saints, of the household of 
God, " built upon the foundation of the apostles and 
prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief corner- 
stone ; in whom each several building fitly framed to- 
gether, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom 
ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in 
the Spirit." Here the conceptions of kingdom, house- 
hold, and temple combine with that of body to represent 
in various ways and from different points of view the unity 
and spirituality, the holiness and the vital energy of the 
organized body of Christians. The favorite conception 
of the apostle Paul is that the church is the body of 
Christ. " We, who are many, are one body in Christ, 
and severally members one of another." 1" " For as the 
body is one, and hath many members, and all the mem- 
bers of the body, being many, are one body, so also is 
Christ. For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one 
body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; 



* xxi. + xii. 22, 23. X In Jer. iii. 14-18 ; Ezek. xl.-xlix. ; Isaiah lx. 

§ Hebrews xii. 22. ] Eph. ii. 12-22. T] Rom. xii. 5. 



292 WHITHER ? 

and were all made to drink of one Spirit." * The 
heavenly Father put all things under the feet of Christ, 
" and gave him to be the head over all things to the 
church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth 
all in all." f The apostle also represents the relation 
between Christ and His Church as a marriage relation. 
" Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for 
it ; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the 
washing of water with the word, that he might present 
the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot 
or wrinkle or any such thing ; but that it should be holy 
and without blemish." % 

All of these conceptions of the apostles are synon- 
ymous, and set forth in various forms and from different 
points of view the unique relation of Christ and His dis- 
ciples. They are the kingdom, He is the king ; they are 
the city of which He is the light and glory ; they are the 
temple, He is the corner-stone ; they are the body, He 
is the head ; they are the flock, He is the chief shep- 
herd ; they are the people, He has purchased them to 
Himself ; they are a family of which God is the father 
and He is the elder brother ; they are the wife, He is 
the husband. None of these terms in their Biblical 
usage will allow us to think of more than one organiza- 
tion, or of any other principle of organization than the 
life and love of Jesus Christ. § 

The unity of Christ's Church is in Christ, the head, 
the king, and it can be found in no other person. It is 
centred at the throne of Christ, at the right hand of the 



* i Cor. xii. 12, 13. t Eph. i. 22, 23 ; see also CoL i. 18. 

X Eph. v. 25-27. 

§ "Alle diese Begriffe sind so geartet dass sie die Vorstellung mehrerer 
Kirchen Christi schlechterdings ausschliessen " (Julius Muller, Die evang. Union, 
p. 28. Berlin, 1854). 



THITIIER. 293 

Father in heaven ; it cannot be in any place on earth. 
The kingdom is composed of all who are united to 
Christ, in all ages from the beginning of the world until 
the close of this dispensation. It embraces the patri- 
archs, the prophets, the apostles and martyrs, the fathers 
and theologians, the saints and heroes of the Church in 
all epochs ; from all lands multitudes innumerable gath- 
ered about the throne of God and the Lamb. The Scrip- 
tures give several glimpses of this Church of Christ.* 
The Church of Jesus Christ is therefore chiefly in heaven, 
where He is. The Church on earth is but the vestibule, 
the outer court of the heavenly temple.f If all Chris- 
tians in the world could be assembled in one vast multi- 
tude, they would be a small company compared with the 
multitude about the heavenly throne. The visible Church 
prior to the Reformation had merged the invisible Church 
on earth in itself. The Reformation revived the Biblical 
doctrines of the universal priesthood of believers and 
immediate access to the throne of Christ by faith ; and 
thus made the distinction between the visible and the 
invisible Church one of the characteristic features of 
Protestantism. The Reformers did not teach that there 
were two Churches, but that the one Church was in 
great part invisible, and in some part visible here on 
earth, in accordance with the external conformity of 
Christians to the doctrines and institutions of Christ Him- 
self. This distinction between the visible and invisible 
Church has been denied in recent times by Rothe and oth- 
ers ; but it has been reaffirmed by Julius Mtiller,;{; Dorner, 
and other chief divines of the Protestant Churches. 



* Rev. vii. 9, seq. ; xix. 6, seq. ; Heb xii. 23. f Rev. xi. 2, seq. 

\ " Und gewiss, so lange die evangelische Kirche auf dem Grunde des gott- 
lichen Wortes verharren wird, so lange wird es ihr formell und materiell unm5g- 
lich sein sich von der Idee der unsichtbaren Kirche loszusagen " (Muller, Dog- 
matische Abhandlungen. Bremen, 1870, p. 402) 



29tt WHITHER? 

The historical Church has too often committed the sin 
of exaggerating its own importance over against the 
vastly greater, more extensive, and holier Church that is 
gathered about the throne of Christ composed of all 
those, wherever they may be, who are in vital union and 
communion with Him. The Church in this world is 
visible in a considerable number of ecclesiastical organ- 
izations. It is sinful pride and arrogance for any one of 
them to claim the exclusive rights and privileges of the 
visible Church of Christ.* It is easy to see that no one 
of them can be identified with the Church on earth ; for 
no one of them embraces all true Christians, and no one 
of them is so pure that it contains none but Christians. 
Furthermore, if all the churches on earth could be com- 
bined in one ecclesiastical organization they could not 
be identified with the Church of Christ ; for they would 
still leave outside their pale multitudes of real Chris- 
tians ; that is, vast numbers of unbaptized children, who 
are the elect of God and belong to the Church of the 
redeemed ; and large numbers from among the heathen 
who have never had an opportunity of attaching them- 
selves to any form of the visible Church. And, on the 
other hand, all the churches contain not a few hypo- 
crites, who are not real Christians at all. The visible 
Church is, at the best, a poor and faint reflection of the 
ideal Church. The holy and undefiled bride of the Lamb 
is not on earth, but in heaven, where He is. The Church 
on earth is defiled with sin, error, and imperfection of 
every kind. It is the work of redemption, very largely, 



* " Nur Sunde usid zwar gehaufte Sunde kann die Eine Kirche in ihrer 
Erscheinung in eine Vielheit von Kirchen zerspalten, welche die positive Geme- 
inschaft mit einander aufgeben, und immer sind Kirchenspaltungen schwere 
Gerichte fiber die erscheinende Kirche" (Dorner, Glaubenslehre, II., pp. 913, 

914). 



THITHER. 295 

to cleanse the historical and visible forms of Christi- 
anity. 

The ideal of the Church is visible unity, but the visi- 
ble Church cannot entirely attain its ideal until its com- 
pletion in Jesus Christ. Before the Second Advent the 
visible will correspond with the invisible only in part. 
It will grow nearer the goal, but will not altogether 
reach it. 

Notwithstanding the external discord in the Church, 
there is vastly greater external unity than is generally 
supposed to be the case. The most essential things in 
the Christian religion, the real fundamentals, are the 
common property of all the ecclesiastical organizations 
of Christendom. 

Archbishop Ussher well says : 

" Thus if at this day we should take a survey of the several 
professions of Christianity, that have any large spread in any 
part of the world .... and should put by the points wherein 
they did differ one from another, and gather into one body the 
rest of the Articles wherein they all did generally agree, we 
should find that in those propositions, which without all contro- 
versie are universally received in the whole Christian world, so 
much truth is contained, as being joyned with holy obedience, 
may be sufficient to bring a man unto everlasting salvation." * 

All Christians hold to the sacred Scriptures as the in- 
spired word of God to guide the Church in religion, doc- 
trine, and morals. The Apostles' Creed is the symbol 
of the universal Church. Christians of every name enter 
the visible Church by the sacrament of baptism and par- 
take of the Supper of the Lord, whatever may be their 
views of the meaning of these sacraments. They all 
engage in the worship of God on the Lord's day. They 
all use the Lord's Prayer as a guide to their devotions. 

* Ussher's " A Brief Declaration of the Universalize of the Church. A Ser- 
mon before the King," 1624, p. 28. 



296 WHITHER? 

Their worship has essentially the same substance, how- 
ever varied may be its forms of expression. The Ten 
Commandments and Christ's law of love are the uni- 
versal laws of Christian morals. Now, these are the great 
verities of the Christian religion. They are vastly more 
important than those other things about which the 
Churches of Christendom differ, and concerning which 
there is strife and discord. The calm and abiding con- 
cord of Christendom is vastly more profound than the 
noisy and superficial discord. 

WORLD-WIDE CONFLICT. 

In all these questions of the times the Westminster 
Confession is in advance of the Presbyterian and Con- 
gregational Churches and points the way of progress. 
The Church ought to be in advance of the Confession. 
But the Confession is in advance of the Church, so that 
the children of the Puritans must first advance to the 
high mark of their own standards before they can go 
beyond them into the higher reaches of Christian the- 
ology. 

The old questions that divide the Churches are giving 
way to these new questions, and the divisions of theo- 
logians are on lines that cross the barriers of the denom- 
inations. The sectarian divisions are becoming merged 
in the vastly greater and more important conflict be- 
tween the conservatives and the progressives in all the 
Churches. 

Here is the world-wide conflict which is now upon us, 
that will make questions of theology the most important 
of all questions, for the people as well as for the minis- 
try; that will exalt theology to her throne as the queen 
of science; and that will advance the religion of our 
Saviour in a new reformation that will conquer the 



THITHER. 297 

world for Christ, consecrate it, sanctify it, and prepare it 
for His advent in glory. Such a world-wide conflict 
will give us the unity for which Christendom yearns. 

" By and by, men will be looking back and wondering at us 
Christians in these last years of the nineteenth century, that we 
so poorly understood the Gospel, overlaying it, some of us with 
ritual, others with dogma. Lament it, my brethren. We have 
much to be ashamed of. But let not your heart be troubled. 
More Pentecosts than one have come already. And more are yet 
to come, with rushing pinions and tongues of flame."* 

True unity is to be attained by conserving all that is 
good in the past achievements of the Church, and by ad- 
vancing to still higher attainments. The Holy Spirit 
will guide the Church and the Christian scholar in the 
present and the future as He has in the past. The 
Creeds give us what has already been attained. We take 
our stand on them and build higher. Progress is possi- 
ble only by research, discussion, and conflict. The more 
conflict the better. Battle for the truth is infinitely 
better than stagnation in error. Every error should be 
slain as soon as possible. If it be our error we should 
be the most anxious to get rid of it. Error is our 
greatest foe. Truth is the most precious possession. 
There can be no unity save in the truth, and no perfect 
unity save in the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 
Let us unite in the truth already gained and agree to 
contend in Christian love and chivalry for the truth that 
has not yet been sufficiently determined, having faith 
that in due time the Divine Spirit will make all things 
clear to us. 

Christian churches should go right on in the lines 
drawn by their own history and their own symbols ; 
this will in the end lead to greater heights, on which 

* R. D. Hitchcock, " Eternal Atonement," p. 300. 



298 WHITHER ? 

there will be concord. Imperfect statements will be 
corrected by progress. All forms of error will disappear 
before the breath of truth. We are not to tear down 
what has cost our fathers so much. We are rather to 
strengthen the foundations and buttress the buildings 
as we build higher. Let the light shine, higher and 
higher, the clear, bright light of day. Truth fears no 
light. Light chases error away. True orthodoxy seeks 
the full blaze of the noontide sun. In the light of such 
a day the unity of Christendom will be gained. 



INDEX. 



Adopting Act 29 

Adoption 142, 144 

Alexander, Archibald .77, 78, 79, 81, 132, 133 

Allen, A. V. G 113 

Alliances and Federal Unions 261 

Alsted, John Henry 202, 205 

Amyraut, Christopher 103 

Anabaptists 23,185,201 

Andover theory 220 

Anonymes 86 

Anthropology 107 

Antichrist 173, 184, 185, 22S 

Apocryphal books 75, 80, 82 

Apostles' Creed 19, 58, 59, 96, 208, 

262, 269, 275, 286 

Aquinas 21 

Archer, John 205. 214 

Arminianism 99, 197, 241, 242 

Arrowsmith, John 103, 104, 123 

Aspinwall, William 214 

Assurance of Grace 142, 157 

Atonement 112, 115 

Augustine 21 

Authenticity 89 

Authenticity and Canonicity 81 ff. 

Authority of Scripture 73 

Bakeweli., Thomas 214 

Ball. John .68, 144, 149 

Baptism 119, 180, 255, 262, 264 

Baptismal Regeneration 180 

Baptist Confession, 1045-6 214 

Baptist intolerance 255 

Baxter, Richard. .71, 227, 235, 239, 241, 

_ ,. _ . 2 47, 254 

Bayhe, Robert 123, 124, 205, 213, 2'4 

Belgian Confession 74 

Benediction, Apostolic 251 

Bergius, I ohn 258, 265 

Bible (Sacred Scriptures), .gff".- 15, 262, 264 
Bible does not decide all questions. . . 10-n 

Bible, External authority of 281 

Biblical Criticism 63, 68, 71, 73, 277 

Biblical Theology.. . . 12, 245, 284 

Book of Church Order 31, 33, 34 

Book of Discipline 31 

Book of Common Prayer. . 180, 235, 253, 265 

Briggs, Charles A 12. 23, 29, 30, 43, 

53, 72, 75. 84. 8S. 94, 153, 161, 178, 

246, 248, 249, 259, 264, 290 



Brightman, Thomas 202, 203 

Brookes, James H 19Q 

Brownists 185 

Hruce, A. B 114 

Burgess, Anthony 122 

, Cornelius. . . 123, 124, 180 

Burroughs. Jeremiah 205, 213, 234 

Butler, Joseph 217 

Calamy, Edmund 102, 103,216,241 

Calrin. John 69, 76,88,138 

Calvinism 100, 150, 153, 241, 242, 244 

Candlish, Robert S 143, 144, 145 

Canon of Scripture... 75, 77, 78, 80, 82, 83, 84 

Canonicity 83, 89 

Canons of Dort 97, ioi, 103 

Canons of the Episcopal Church 265 

Capel, Richard 67 

Carter, William 128 

Cartwright, Thomas 39 

Caryl, Joseph 214 

Cathedral establishments 42 

Chiliasts, or Millenaries.. .201, 203, 205,213 

Chillendon, Edmund 185 

Christ, Person and Work of 112 

Christian liberty 159 

Christian Orthodoxy 19 

Christian Union 226^"., 289 

Christian Unity 168 

Christian Year 56 

Christianity, Great verities of. 295./"- 

Christophanies 279 

Church, Doctrine of the 173 

Church and State 164 

Church Censures 175 

Church Government 175 

Church of Christ 289 

Church of England 48, 79, 236, 248, 

249, 250, 262 

Civil Declarations 164 

Civil Magistrate 164 

Clasgis.. 46 

Close Communion 255 

Collection 49 

Common Prayer 251, 253 

Congreeational Government 229 

Congregationalism 2^6 

Consensus of Christendom 226,268 

Consensus of Reformed Confessions. . . . 261 
Conservatism 258 

(299) 



300 



INDEX. 



Contemporary History of Bible 284 

Conviction of Sin 153 

Craven. E. R 173 

Crawford, Thomas J 143, 144, 145, igo 

Creation 105 

Credibility 72 

Criticism 278 

Crosby, Howard 98, 111, 112, 114, 115 

Culverwell, Nathaniel .129, 131 

Cumberland Presbyterian Church 242 

Cunningham, William 190 

Dabney, Robert L..100, no, 144, 151, 190 

Damnation of Infants 121 

Davcnant, John.. 103, T04, 192,240,244,245 

Deacon 231 

Decree, The Divine 97 ff. 

Denominational barriers 4, 266 

Denominations 166, 194, 258/. 

Development, Doctrine of ... 105, 106 

Dick. 1 homas 144 

Dickinson, Jonathan 29 

Directory of Worship. . . .31, 33. 49, 50, 
5i, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 161, 180, 

192, 251 

Dissensus of Christendom 226, 273 

Divine Right of Church Government. .226 jf. 

D'vinity of Christ 114 

Divorce 172 

Doctor or Teacher 38, 39, 41, 47 

Doctrine, Variety of 247 

Doctrines, New •zjbjF. 

Doctrines, Three classes 267 

Dogmatic Theology 18, 91, 245 

Dorner, Isaac A. . . 69, 91, 94, 114, 173, 

198, 211, 218, 293, 294 
Downing, Calybute 247 

Ecclesiastical Bodies 232 

Editors as Teaching Elders 36 

Edwards, Jonathan 153 

Thomas 214 

Effectual Calling 118, 130 

Elders 47,231 

"Elect Infante" "i^., 135 

Eliot, John 53 

Episcopal Government 229 

Episcopate, Historic . . 237, 262, 264 

Errors in present text of Bible 68, 72 

Eschatology 195,222 

Established National Church, An 166 

Eternal Justification 131 

Ethical development 108, 1 56 

Ethics 287 

Evangelical Alliance 261 

Evangeltts.^ 3, 34, 36, 39, 47, 48 

Evangelization of the masses 2 

Evidence for divine authority of Scrip- 
ture , 75 

Evidences from Miracles and Prophecy. 279 
Exaltation of Christ 116 

Faith 134, 147, 148, 149 

Fasting 56 

Fatherhood of God 143, 144, 145 

Featley. Edward..... 214 

Federal Unions 261 

Fifth-Monarchy men 214 



Finch, Henry 202 

Foreign Missions 4 

Foreknowledge 99 

Foregi veness of Sin 95, 96, lyijf. 

Form of Government. .24, 30, 33, 38, 44, 

57- 59, 176 

Formula Concordia 89 

Freedom of Worship 168 

Future Life 2S5 

Gallican Confession 74, 77, 78 

Gall us of Leiden 202 

Gataker, Thomas 131, 215, 247 

General .Assembly 45, 46, 233 

General Assembly of 1790 181, 184 

k - 1835 1S6 

11 " " 1845 (O. S.) 186 

" 1879 188 

Gillespie, George 102, 215 

God, The Living 93/'. 

Good Works 142, 152, 154^". 

Goodwin, Thomas 205, 213 

Gospels 84_/". 

Gouge, William... 89, 102, 203, 204, 205, 

206, 215 

Gower, Stanley 215 

Grace of God 94 

Growth in Saving Faith 150 

Harris, Robert 103, 145 

Heard, John B 145 

Heathen 118, 120, 122, 129, 220, 286 

Hebrews, Epistle to the 85 

H eidelberg Catechism. 260 

Herle, Charles 76, 123 

Heterodoxy 8, 15, 163, 266 

Higher Criticism. .81, 83, 84, 86, 88, 89, 

15c, 2S3 

Hill, George 144 

Thomas 233 

Historical Criticism 80 

Hitchcock, Roswell D. 272, 277, 297 

Hodge, A. A. ..64, 68, 69, 81, 83, 84, 86, 

Q3> 94, 95, 9°\ 98, 99, "°, *34, 139, 
140, 142, 148, 150, 155, 175, 178, 193, 

199, 208, 209, 210 
Hodge, Charles 81, 82, 86, 92, 96, 107, 

Il6 > i33, i3 6 > I 3 8 » J 42, 148, 151* 155, i5 8 » 

187 

Hoi v-Day s 56 

Holy Life _ 287 

Homes, Nathaniel 214 

Huet. P. D 79 

Human Evidence 80 

Humiliation of Christ 114 

Hymns 50, 252 

InCapables 119, 13 t, 134 

Immediate Sanctification 147, 210, 286 

Immersion 255 

Inability, Human.. io^ff. 

, Moral no 

Incarnation 1 i2y. 

I nerrancy 64, 68, 90 

Infant Baptism 126 

Infant Salvation 119, 135 

Inspiration ._ 72, 73, 75, 89 

Internal Evidence of Scripture 280 



INDEX. 



301 



Interpretation, Improper methods 246 

Irish A nicies 101, 18 x, 215 

Janskmsts 228 

Johnson, Francis 185 

Judgment at Oeaih.. . ..195, 212, 216, 286 

Judgment, Final public. 198,212 

Judgment in I. den 196 

Jure Divino Church Government. . . 175^". 

Justice of God .. 94 

Justification by Faith alone. . . .63, 134, 

«37t J 42, 15a. 153* 199 

Kenosis 114 

Kostlin, Julius 138 

Fxmbf.rt, Francis 201 

Lambeth Conference 262 

l.ange. J. P 69 

Law of God 142, 158^. 

Lay- Evangelists 35 

1 ightfoot, J<hn 215 

Literary Criticism 282 

Liturgical Books 25o_/"., 254 

Liturgy 24 

Logia of Matthews's Gospel 85 

Lord's Prayer 52, 58, 59, 205, 269, 270 

Lord's Supper.. . .48, 176, 180, 181, 190, 

191, 257, 262, 264, 270 

Love of God 94./^ 

Luther, Martin 69, 87, 138, 152, 281 

Lyford, William 66 

Makemie, Francis 43, 249 

Man. Doctrine of 107 Jf. 

Manton, Robert 214 

Marriage and Divorce 171 

Marrow Men 153 

Marshall, Stephen ... 103, 126, 127, 183, 

203, 205, 206, 231 

Martensen, H. L 91 

Masoretic text 282 

Meade, William 133 

Means of Grace T19 

Mede, Joseph 205 

Mediator. The 112 

Meldenius, Rupertus 276 

Mercy of God 96./". 

Messiah 206 

Methodism 153 

Methodist Fpiscopal Church .. 242 

Middle State. .137, 147, 196. 199,206^"., 

218, 220, 222, 286 

Mil'ennium 200 

Ministry. .American system 40-42 

Ministry. Doctrine of the 33^- 

Ministry of the Word 119 

Miracles 279 

Mitchell, A. F 89, 101, 103, 145, 181 

Monogamy 171 

Monsell. R. W i n 

Moore, W. E 182 

Moral Government of God 218 

Moral liberty of men 99 

Morals 271 

Morris. E. D 112, 116, 117, 218, 219 

Miiller, Julius 292, 293 

Musical Instruments 252 



National Religion, A 167, 168 

Natural Ability no 

Natural light 122 

Neander, A 69 

Ncwcommen, Matthew 123 

Nicene Creed 262,264,275 

Oaths and Vows 161 

Officers of the Church 176, 177 

Old Catholics.. . 228 

( irder of Salvation 139, 147 

Order of Worship 49 

( (rdinances, Validity of 182 

Ordination 185,189,230 

Original Righteousness 107 

Original Sin 108, 196 

Orthodoxism 7, 90, 141, 162, 163 

Orthodoxy 6, 266, 267 

Paget, Ei-hriam 214 

Palmer, Herbert 25, 26, 86, 183, 203, 

205, 206, 246 

Papacy 1S5, 228 

Pastors 37. 47. 230 

Patton, Francis L 68, 76, 77 

Pentateuch 85 

Permission of M an's Fall 102 

Perseverance of Saints 157 

Petrie, Alexander 214 

Piscator, John 202, 205 

Plenary I nspiration 66 

Pneumatophanies 279 

Poole. Matthew 66 

Tope of Rome 173, 184 

Prayer, Order of topics S^JF- 

Prayer books 253 

Premillenarianism 203, 204, 21 iff 

Premillenartans 173 

Prentiss. George L 136, 219, 221 

Presbyter- P.ishop 230, 238 

Presbyterian C hurch (Fnglish) 107 

Presbyterian Church (North).. 31, 154, 

164, 172, 242 
Presbyterian Church (South). . . 31, 33, 

35- 36. 37i 38, 106, 154, 164, 172, 242 

Presbyterian Government 229 

Presbyterianism 236 

Presbytenanism of America 43 

Presbyterianism. jure divino 175 

Presbytery 43, 45, 46, 47, 177, 233 

Presbytery of 1706 43 

Preterition 104 

Priesthood of Christ 117 

Probation 217 • ff. 

Progress 258, 266, 275, 297 

Progressive Orthodoxv 8, 16 

Progressive Sanctification 210 

Proof-Texts. ...... 25, 31, 37, 05 

Prophecy. Predictive 279 

Proposals for Reunion 262 

Protestant Episcopal Church. . 164, 238. 

254, 262, 263 

Protestantism 20, 239, 269 

Protestantism, Essentials of 240 

Provincial Assembly of London, 1647. 

46. 177, 178, 183. 2ir, 234 

Psalm-Book and Paraphrases 251 

Psalter 51, 252 



302 



INDEX. 



Pseudonymes 86 

Psychology, Changes in 107/". 

Purgatory 206,209 

Puritan Reformation 22, 152 

Puritanism 141, 142, 150, 151, 161, 243 

Puritans 249 

Real Presence 180, 190^". 

Redemption of Elect only . . 103 

Redemption, Work of. 113, 118 

Keformation 12, 74, 141, 152, 228 

Reformation, Three principles of the. . 63 

Reformed Church 259 

Reformers 87, 88, 185, 268, 280 

Regeneration 118 

Religion, Present unsatisfactory state 

of 1 

Relisiion and Morals &ff- 

Religious Equality 168 

Repentance unto Life... 148, 151./"., 152, 287 

Reprobation ioo_/"., 103, 104 

Resurrection 212, 216 

Revision of Standards .. ..30^"., 58, 98, 277 

Reynolds, Edward 26, 102, 103, 123 

Roberts, Francis 144 

Roman Catholic Baptism i8i_^f., 270 

Roman Catholic Church. ..73, 167, 168, 

169, 184, 186, 188, 201, 226, 268_//"., 280 

Ross, Alexander 214 

Rothe, Richard 293 

Rule of Faith 246 

Ruling Elders. 36, 232 

Rutherford, Samuel... 70, 71, 76, 78, 81, 

96, 102, 124, 149, 214 

Sabbath 161, 271 

Sacraments 179, 180, 255 

Sacrifices, Symbolism of O. T 1 15-6 

Sal tmarsh, John 131 

Salvation by grace alone 63, 100 

"Same Decree" 101 

Sanctification.. . .142, 146^7%, 152, 153, 

157, 198, 199, 287_/7- 

Satisfaction of Christ 115 

Saving Faith 142, 148, 149./7. 

Savoy Conference, 1660-61 249 

Schaff, Philip 190 

Schleiermacher, Friedr 60 

Science and Creation 105 

Scotch Comm'rs to Westm. Assem. .14, 

Scottish Books of Discipline 39 

Scriptures, Reading of 25T 

Scriptures, Sole authority of the 63 

Scriptures in Worship 55 

Seaman, Lazarus 102, 103, 185, 215 

Second Advent .... 54,206,212,216 

Second Helvetic Confession 74 

Sense of Scripture 89 

Sermon 49,251 

Sermon on the Mount 269, 271 

Sessions .• 45, 46 

Shedd, William G. T. ... 107, 139, 197, 209 

Simon, D. W 138 

Simpson, Prof. Sydrach 135 

Sin \<&ff. 

Singing of Psalms in worship 50 



Slavery 154 

Smith, Henry B,.59, no, 113, 116, 188, 243 

Solemn League and Covenant 24 

Song, Sacred 251, 252 

Sonship of Believers 143, 1 59 

Sovereignty of God 98, 100 

Speculation 91 

Siandard of orthodoxy 7-8 

Standards. Change of attitude to 27//". 

Staupitz, John 152, 156 

Stier, R 69 

Subscription 28/"., 239, 276 

Substitution 115 

Symbolics 21, 245, 273 

Symbols of Faith T-9J?- 

Synod of Dort 241 

Synod of 1788.. 30, 31,33, 36.37, 38,39, 

53i 56, 57, 58, 165, 166, 168, 169 

Synods. 45i 169, 178,233 

Synods, Early American 44 

Synods and Councils 175 

Taylor, Thomas 125 

Teacher, see also Doctor . . 38 

Temple, Thomas 26 

Ten commands — 58, 59, 129, 158, 159, 

172, 269, 271 
Testimony of the Ancient Church.. 64. 

^ , - - . 74* 90 
Textual Criticism 282 

Theological Systems 245 

Theology, Construction of. 13 

Theophanies 279 

XXXIX Articles 24, 26, 74, 79, 80, 

160, 215, 225, 242 

Tholuck, A 6g 

Thoughts and Words 65 

Tischendorf, Constantin 282 

Tombes, John 127, 183 

Total Abstinence 155, 162, 192 

Total Depravity 108 

Traditionalism. . 9, 17, 21, 91, 162, 163, 

195, 258.//: 

Translations 65 , 66 

Tuckney, Anthony.. 25, 27, 28., 59,129. 

131,203, 205, 206, 215 

Turretine, Francis 21, 138,144,223 

Twisse, William 125, 205, 213, 215 

Ultimate Christianity 16 

Uniformity of Worship 248 

Union, Basis of 230 

Union by Federation 237 

Unity of the Church 167. 168, 227, 289 

Universal Salvation of Infants 133, 

136, 137, 221, 286 
Ussher, James 229, 235, 264, 295 

Van Dyke, Henry J 190 

Van Oosterzee. O. 69, 116 

Verbal Inspiration 64, 90, 282 

Vines, Richard 67, 103 

Visible Church 293/". 

Visible Church, Unity of. 174 

Vows 161 

Wallis, John 27, 68, 134 



INDEX. 



303 



Warfield, B. B. .. 64, 68, 69, 72, 86, 87, 107 

Wesley, John 211, 242 

Westcott and Hort 282 

Westminster Assembly 23^"., 122, 

123, 127, 170, 178, 185, aoi, 325, 2 3 r 

Divines... 2}, 36, 37, 38, 46, 47, 56, 

57, 59- 79, 81, 82, 88, 94, 98, 99, 101, 
103, 105, 106, 108, 118,119,120,130, 
134, 136, 145, 156, 160, 161, 165, 169, 
»7*» 175, 185, 189, 192,200,203,205, 

206, 210, 213, 214, r.15, 225, 246, 264 

Catechism, Larger.. 25, 26, 27, 28, 

3 1 - 33, 59, 107, 108, 112, 114, 115, 
121, 129, 156, 158, 159, 180, 183, 195, 

205, 206, 209, 212 
Catechism, Shorter. .25, 27, 28, 31, 

33. 59, 6°, 12 9, 195, 206 

' Confession 21, 25, 26, 31, 33, 56, 

59, 6 3< 75, 82, 91, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 
101, 103, 106, 107, in, 112. 117,119, 
120, 121, 123, 131, 132, 134, 135, 140, 
141, 142, 144, 147, 148, 149 150, 151, 
154, »55i x 57, 158, 159, l6 °, l6l » x 6a, 



163, 164, 165, 172, 174, 176, 179, 181, 

182, 183, l86, 193, I95, 199, 206, 2<j8, 
212, 2l6, 217, 2l8, 219, 220, 223, 260, 

274, 2 9 6 
Symbols and Standards. . . .20, 22, 

2 3^"-, 27. y>, 32, 58, 78, 89, 90, 92, 

95, 97, 98, lOo, 107, 108, 109, I IO, 
115, 110, 117, 134, 135, 139, 140, I44, 
I45, I56, 182, 185, 187, 189, 20I, 216, 

223, 225, 242, 264, 274, 277, 287 

Whichcote, Benj 28 

W hi taker, Jeremiah 102 

Whitby. Daniel 201, 206, 217 

Wilkinson, Henry 214 

Woodcock, Francis 213, 215 

Wording of the Confession 123 

Works of Supererogation 156 

Worship 60, 161, 270 

Worship, Presbyterian 48^*. 

Worship, Uniformity of 248 

ZWINGLI, ULRICH Il8, 122 



Messianic Prophecy. 



The Prediction of the fulfilment of Redemption through the 
Messiah. A critical study of the Messianic passages of the Old 
Testament in the order of their development. By CHARLES 
A. Briggs, D.D., Professor of Hebrew and the Cognate Langu- 
ages in Union Theological Seminary, New York. One volume, 
crown octavo, $2.50. 

"Messianic Prophecy is a subject of no common interest, and this honk in no ordin- 
ary hook. It is, on the contrary, a work of the very first order, the ripe product of 
years of study upon the highest themes. It is exegesis in master-hand, about its 

noblest business It has been worth while to commend this book at some 

length to the attention of Bible students, because both the subject and the treatment 
entitle it to rank among the very foremost works of the generation in the department 
of Exegetical Theology. Union Seminary is to be congratulated that it is one of her 
Professors who, in a noble line of succession has produced it. The American Church 
is to be congratulated that the author is an American, and Presbyterians that he is a 
Presbyterian. A Church that can yield such books has large possibilities."— New 
York Evangelist. 

"It is second in importance to no theological work which has appeared in this 
country during the present century."— The Critic. 

"His arduous labor has been well expended, for he has finally produced a book 
which will give great pleasure to Christians of all denominations The pro- 
found learning displayed in the book commends it to the purchase of all clergymen 
who wish for the most critical and exact exposition of a difficult theme ; while its 
earnestness and eloquence will win for it a place in the library of every devout lay- 
man."—^. Y. Journal of Commerce. 

"It is rich with the fruits of years of zealous and unwearied study, and of an ample 
learning. In it we have the first English work on Messianic Prophecy which stands 
on the level of modern Biblical studies, It is one of the most important and valuable 
contributions of American scholarships to those studies. It is always more than in- 
structive : it is spiritually helpful. We commend the work not only to ministers, but 
to intelligent laymen."— 77ie Independent. 

"On the pervading and multiform character of this promise, see a recent, as well 
as valuable authority, in the volume of Dr. Briggs, of the New York Theological 
Seminary, on 'Messianic Prophecy.'" — W. E. Gladstone. 

"Prof. Briggs 1 Messianic Prophecy is a most excellent book, in which I greatly 
rejoice." — Prof. Fkanz Delitzsch. 

"All scholars will join in recognizing its singular usefulness as a text-book. It ha6 
been much wanted." — Rev. Canon Cheyne. 

"It is a book that will be consulted and prized by the learned, and that will add to 
the author's deservedly high reputation for scholarship. Evidences of the ability, 
learning and patient research of the author are apparent from the beginning to the 
end of the volume, while the style is remarkably fine." — Phila. Presbyterian. 

" His new book on Messianic Phrophecy is a worthy companion to his indispens- 
able text-book on Biblical study .... What is most of all required to insure the 
future of Old Testament studies in this country is that those who teach should satisfy 
their students of their historic connection with the religion and theology of the past. 
Prof. Briggs has the consciousness of such a connection in a very full degree, and 
yet he combines this with a frank and unreserved adhesion to the principles of modern 

criticisms He has produced the first English text-book on the subject of 

Messianic Prophecy which a modern teacher can use."— The London Academy. 



This book is for sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent, post-paid, on receipt of price, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 
743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



Biblical Study, 



Its Principles, Methods, and History of its Branches, together 
with a Catalogue of Books of Reference. By Charles A. Briggs, 
D.D., Professor of Hebrew and the Cognate Languages in Union 
Theological Seminary, New York. Third Edition. One volume, 
crown 8vo, $2.50. 

" A choice book, for which we wiah wide circulation and deep influence in its own 
land and also recognition among us. The author maintains his position with so much 
spirit and in such beautiful language that his book makes delightful reading, and it is 
particularly instructive for Germans on account of tbe very characteristic extracts 
from the writings of English theologians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
Moreover, he is unusually familiar with German literature of recent date as well as 
with that of the earlier period. 1 ' — Zarncke's Literaturisches Centralblatt fur Deutsch- 
land. 

" Here is a theological writer, thoroughly scientific in his methods, and yet not 
ashamed to call himself evangelical. One great merit of this handbook is the light 
which it throws on the genesis of modern criticism and exegesis. Those who use it 
will escape the crudities of many English advocates of half-understood theories. Not 
the least of its merits is the well-selected catalogue^ of books of reference — English, 
French, and German. We are sure that no student will regret sending for the book." 
— The Academy, London. 

" Dr. Briggs begins with a chapter upon the advantages of Biblical study, and the 
subjects of the following chapters are : Exegetical Theology, the Languages of the 
Bible, the Bible and Criticism, the Canon and Text of the Bible, Higher Criticism, 
Literary Study of the Bible, Hebrew Poetry, Interpretation of Scripture, Biblical 
Theology, and the Scriptures as a Means of Grace. It will be seen that the subjects 
occupy a wide range, and, ably treated as they are. the volume becomes one of real 
value and utility. Appended to the work is a valuable catalogue of books of reference 
in biblical studies, and three indexes— of Scriptures, of topics, and of books and 
authors. The publishers have done honor to the work, and it deserved it."— The 
Churchman. 

" The minister who thoroughly masters this volume will find himself mentally in- 
vigorated, as well as broadened in his scope of thought ; will almost certainly be able to 
better satisfy himself in his understanding of what the truth is which from the Bible 
he ought to preach to men ; and so will speak from his pulpit with new force, and 
find his words mightier, through God, to the pulling down of strongholds." — Boston 
Congregationalist. 

"After all that we have heard of the higher criticism, it is refreshing to find so 

scholarly and trenchant defences of the old paths His historical account of the 

movement and developement among the English-speaking scholars is very valuable. 
This, and the chapter on the 'Literary Study of the Bible,' are among the best in this 
excellent book."— New York Christian Advocate (Methodist). 

"We are constrained to rank this book as one of the signs of the times in the Amer- 
ican church. It marks the rising tide of Biblical scholarship, Christian liberty of 
thought and evangelical interpretation of the Scriptures."— Christian Union. 

" There are many grounds on which the work may be earnestly commended. Large 
reading in German and English, quick apprehension of the salient points of opposing 
theories, an unflagging earnestness of purpose, and very positive belief in his positions 
conspire to make the work instructive and attractive. But above all these excellences 
there shines out the author's deep reverence for the whole Bible."— The Examiner 
(Baptist, N. Y.) 

This book is for sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent, post-paid, on receipt of price, by 

CHARLES SCRXBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 
743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



American Presbyterianism : 

Its Origin and Early History, together with an Appendix of Letters 
and Documents, many of which have recently been discovered. 
By Charles A. Briggs, D.D., Professor of Hebrew and the Cog- 
nate Languages in the Union Theological Seminary, New York, 
i volume, crown 8vo, with Maps. $3.00. 

"Tl.e Presbyterian Church owes a debt of gratitude to the enthusiasm and antiquar- 
ian research of Professor Briggs. lie seems to have seized the foremost place among 
them, and his vigorous, skilful, and comprehensive researches put all Protestant 
Christians, and especially Cougregationalists, under obligation to him." — Boston 
Congregationalist. 

"This is an admirable and exhaustive work, full of vigorous thinking, clear and 
careful statement, incisive and judicious criticism, minute yet comprehensive research. 
It is such a book as only a man with a gift for historical inquiry and an enthusiasm 
for the history and principles of his Church could have produced. It represents an 
amazing amount of labor. Dr. Briggs seems to have searched every available source, 
British and American, for printed or written documents bearing 011 his subjects, and 
he has met with wonderful success. He has made many important discoveries, illus- 
trative of the Puritan men and period, useful to himself, but certain also to be helpful 
to all future inquiries in this field."— British Quarterly Review. 

"The work before us bears evidence of a research which is as gratifying as it is un- 
usual. We allude particularly to the examination of MSS. in England and Scotland, 
as well as in this country ; and to the very thorough and careful collation of author- 
ities on the whole subject. The author has been for years securing the writings of 
Westminster divines, and the light which these books now cast on the inception of 
the Presbyterian Church in America is not only new, but invaluable. 11 — The Christian 
Union. 

" The volume is a substantial addition to the literature of the subject. It is good in 
itself, and, besides, must exert a powerful influence in leading others to examine the 
sources of knowledge here brought to notice, and give the Church the benefit of re- 
newed investigation. The author deserves the warm thanks of all the Reformed who 
hold the Presbyterian system. 11 — N. Y. Observer. 

"The original investigations of the author have put him in possession of much 
material hitherto unused It ought to be added that the volume touches so con- 
stantly upon the early history of New England as to be indispensable to the student 
of American Congregationalism, while all lovers of antiquarian research will fiud much 
iii it to interest them . 11 — £ unday-School Times. 

"This book accomplished what it professedly aimed at It is really wonder- 
ful how much valuable knowledge Dr. Briggs has been able to press into the volume. 
We commend the work to our Presbyterian readers. It wiil give them a reason for 
the faith that is in them, and it will make them proud of the history of the denomin- 
ation to which they belong. 11 — The Scotsman. 

"It will be of priceless value to the future historian, and Dr. Briggs deserves the 
thanks of the whole Church for his laborious researches, and for his success in rescu- 
ing from oblivion so many significant facts. 11 — Chicago Interior. 

" Professor Briggs has written the history of American Presbyterianism in a manner 
which exhibits it as an essential part of the Christianity of the country, and makes 
every reader whose range is large enough for such views, feel a personal pride in it as 
a history in which he himself has an interest and a share." — N. Y. Independent. 



This book is for sale by all Booksellers, or will be sent, jx)sl-paid, on receipt of price, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



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